The big mix up

Seed oils are almost entirely polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) and mostly linoleic acid. The major confusion between the health effects of saturated fats and PUFAs stemmed from the obsession over individual fats and cholesterols in placement for whole food matrixes during food research in the 1940s 50s and 60s.

This was due to large influxes of cash from American soap manufacturers Proctor and Gamble, who wanted to expand the product line of their ever-increasing supply of industrial seed oils used in their soap. Much of that cash went to the American Heart Association.

Now it’s clear that the vast majority of scientific literature on dietary PUFAs and saturated fats prior to the late 90s is wrong. Recent meta-analyses have found “no beneficial effects of reducing [saturated fatty-acids] intake on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and total mortality, and instead found protective effects against stroke,” read a state-of-the-art review published in 2020.

Other reviews done on the literature which set the standard for linoleic acid dietary recommendations have found they are not only wrong, but increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality, by as much as 20%.

Looking back, the reason becomes obvious. There are several kinds of saturated fats. Some raise cholesterol, like myristic acid, but others like stearic acid don’t. Some are antioxidants, and others like lauric acid, even lower cholesterol. Hindsight’s 20/20, but it shows early scientists’ obsession with saturated fat as a stand-alone category was totally unfounded.

In fact, in mice that were fed a stearic acid-enriched diet, that is, to use 1980s parlance: a saturated-fat enriched diet, showed lower visceral fat content compared to linoleic acid-enriched diets. Furthermore, the mice demonstrated increased lean body mass, and significantly reduced serum glucose.

Stearic acid, which is rich in grass-fed beef, significantly improves apoptosis, the necessary process of programmed cell death, and enemy of inflammation, which linoleic acid also increases through TNF signaling.

Secondly, the obsession over cholesterol levels is still unchanged today. There’s still the idea of “good cholesterol” and “bad cholesterol”. There’s no evidence that bad cholesterol is bad if there are no oxidized fatty acids inside. Which fatty acids are oxidized? PUFAs.

In fact, the question of oxidization is key, as part of the disgusting history of seed oil salesmanship has ensured that nearly all of them are oxidized, or to use a more common term — rancid.

Rancid oils

According to seed oil-snoop Chris Kresser MD, here’s how industrial seed oils are made. After harvesting they’re heated to extremely high temperatures which causes them to oxidize (for the first time) and release harmful byproducts that when stood alone are known as such.

Next, they’re washed with petroleum-based solvents. By now this “food” has a horrible odor due to its rancidity, and so the oils are deodorized, releasing trans-fats, one of the most damaging fatty acids in humans.

All of this tampering, impossible in a non-mechanized world, leaves the oils very unstable, and prone to further damage (oxidization) under exposure to heat, light, and certain compounds. They’re rancid items, despite the fact they have no smell due to the deodorization process. If someone was cooking with olive oil, fish oils, or lard that had experienced the same chemical damage, it would be unbearable.

The stench of rot would overwhelm or senses of smell and taste and our bodies would reject the food through regurgitation. These seeds oils however, in which nearly every food item in the world is now fried, are chemically treated with the aforementioned deodorizing chemicals, as well as synthetic antioxidants like BHT, BHA, and TBHQ, which have endocrine-disrupting, carcinogenic, and immune-disrupting effects.

Furthermore, these oxidized fats are picked up by the LDL cholesterol molecules, created in the body to absorb excess fats, and when transported into fat cells create the conditions for cardiovascular disease like atherosclerosis.

The intake of certain saturated fats like lauric and myristic acids, increases the production of LDL in order to prevent saturated fats circulating in the bloodstream.

Here is the picture of the industrialized Western diet — food fried in seed oils, sitting next to bread baked with seeds oils between which is red meat, and after which is a desert processed with seed oils. WaL

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