Vegetable oils like canola, soybean, and corn oil are a ubiquitous part of the modern diet. You can find them in everything from salad dressings to chips and crackers. Restaurants fry food in them, and food manufacturers use them in place of natural fats in packaged goods. But are these processed seed oils actually healthy? Unfortunately, the truth about vegetable oils is far more nefarious than most people realize.
From Harmful Toxins to “Health Foods”
Believe it or not, many common vegetable oils started out as inedible industrial products. In the late 1800s, cottonseed oil was primarily used to lubricate machinery because of its toxicity to humans. The oil naturally contains a toxic chemical called gossypol that caused infertility, liver damage, and even loss of appetite.
But in the early 1900s, Procter & Gamble wanted to find a cheaper alternative to expensive animal fats to use in their soaps. A chemist named Edwin Kayser developed a process called hydrogenation that removed the toxins from cottonseed oil, turning the hazardous liquid into a shelf-stable solid fat.
Suddenly, an industrial byproduct was transformed into an edible product. Procter & Gamble realized they could market it not only as a soap ingredient, but also as a lard substitute for baking and cooking. And so, Crisco shortening was born.
This paved the way for other seed oils like soybean and corn oil to also be chemically altered via hydrogenation and marketed as food. Powerful advertising campaigns convinced housewives that these new vegetable-based fats were healthier and more modern than old-fashioned lards and tallows.
Little did the public know, they were happily consuming what was essentially industrial waste just decades earlier.
The Damaging Effects of Hydrogenation
The hydrogenation process that made cottonseed oil edible came with a huge health caveat. It created trans fats – an entirely new type of fat not found in nature.
Trans fats are highly damaging to cardiovascular health. They raise LDL (bad) cholesterol levels even more than saturated animal fats. As early as the 1990s, scientists discovered that eating just 2% of calories from trans fats significantly increased the risk of heart disease.
Yet vegetable oil manufacturers hid this information and worked closely with health organizations to promote seed oils as “heart healthy” compared to animal fats. It wasn’t until 2006 that the FDA required trans fat content to be listed on food labels.
In response, the food industry found ways to re-engineer the hydrogenation process to create trans fat-free vegetable oils. However, even these oils create toxic byproducts when reheated at high temperatures, like in restaurant fryers.
The True Impact of Seed Oils on Health
The vilification of saturated fats combined with the rise of processed foods drove a massive increase in seed oil consumption over the 20th century. In 1909, Americans ate just 2 grams of soybean oil per day. By 1993, the average was up to 30 grams per day!
During this time, heart disease rose exponentially, as did cases of cancer, diabetes, and obesity. The evidence clearly shows that excess omega-6 polyunsaturated fats from vegetable oils promote inflammation and contribute to chronic disease. They are also easily oxidized and readily stored in body fat.
Yet national dietary guidelines still recommend liberal use of these industrial processed oils, thanks to powerful lobbying by the edible oil industry. This preferential treatment allows them to rake in billions of dollars in profits while destroying public health.
Choose Better Cooking Oils
The solution is simple – ditch the seed oils and return to traditional fats. For high-heat cooking, try grass-fed tallow, ghee, lard, or clarified butter. For dressings and low-heat cooking, choose olive oil or avocado oil. You can’t go wrong incorporating more virgin coconut oil as well.
Spend a few minutes reading ingredient labels in your pantry and switch out any products containing corn, soybean, canola, sunflower, cottonseed, safflower or other chemically extracted oils. With some simple swaps, you’ll avoid countless hidden toxins and feel better than ever.
The standard American diet is full of unhealthy processed foods. Vegetable oils are among the worst offenders. Although marketed as heart healthy, the truth is that these chemically altered seed oils actually drive inflammation, oxidation, and disease. Ditch the vegetable oils and embrace traditional fats to take control of your health.
Here are some key takeaways:
- Many common vegetable oils like cottonseed, soybean, and canola oil started as industrial products. They were chemically altered to become edible.
- The hydrogenation process used to make seed oils solid at room temperature creates harmful trans fats.
- Evidence shows excess consumption of omega-6 oils from seeds/plants contributes to heart disease, cancer, obesity, and more.
- National dietary guidelines still recommend liberal use of vegetable oils, despite evidence of harm. This allows the oil industry to profit at the expense of public health.
- Ditch harmful seed oils in favor of more stable, natural oils like olive, avocado, coconut, and grass-fed butter or tallow.
- Read ingredient labels and avoid products containing corn, soybean, canola, sunflower, safflower and other vegetable oils.
- Traditional fats and whole foods are better for health. Processed seed oils promote disease and inflammation.
