[HN Gopher] Thoughts on Seed Oil
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Thoughts on Seed Oil
Author : paulpauper
Score : 79 points
Date : 2024-04-18 17:13 UTC (5 hours ago)
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| criddell wrote:
| I think the final paragraph is a great way to frame it:
|
| > Look, I wish strong seed oil theory were true. That would be
| great. All we'd have to do is reformulate our Cheetos with
| different oil, and then we could go on merrily eating Cheetos.
|
| The problem with our (Western) diet isn't that we're using seed
| oil. It's the diet itself.
| tempsy wrote:
| Fries fried in canola oil is very different than fries fried in
| tallow.
|
| The author seems to suggest that it's all the same because "of
| course fries are junk food" but there is a significant health
| difference if you recognize that reusing seed oils at high
| frying temps over and over again degrades the oil in a way that
| is not the same as with saturated fats.
| atrus wrote:
| That's actually indirectly mentioned in the article, where
| they talk about how the polyunsaturated fats can be turned
| into transfats at temps over 200C.
| tempsy wrote:
| Yet the author insists it doesn't matter because "of course
| Cheetos are junk food", even though it's just a fried corn
| puff.
| joshuahaglund wrote:
| Deep fryers are usually 175 to 190C so trans fats shouldn't
| be much of a concern. I'm more concerned about everything
| else about deep fried foods -- being high calorie, low
| nutrient, zero fiber. The choice of oil is irrelevant
| tempsy wrote:
| Yeah that's absurd. Go to a fast food place and they are
| reusing the oil over and over again for as long as
| possible. Believing that the vegetable oil is in a non
| degraded state by the time they switch it out is naive.
|
| That is going to create a lot of oxidative stress and
| inflammation.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| Excessive saturated fat consumption is not going to be good
| for your LDL levels.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Aren't cholesterol meds good and cheap enough now that you
| basically never even have to worry about your cholesterol?
|
| On top of that, it's all genetics and pointless to worry
| about. Just enjoy the ride. BD
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| Did a Pharma exec write this message?
| tempsy wrote:
| The high cholesterol scare is another thing that needs to
| be explored.
|
| You are operating under the assumption that raising
| cholesterol levels is somehow a terrible thing.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Tallow is more expensive, so if it were the only option,
| fried food would be less profitable. And that would mean
| there would be less fried food in our diets.
| PHGamer wrote:
| so a good thing? i think the big probably with all these
| substitutions is they are to make us eat more of the bad
| thing. if you could only eat fried food or sweets on an
| occasion then no issue. however, those are the things that
| are made cheap.
|
| then again maybe its cause those taste the best due to
| being evolutationary selected and companies arent trying to
| kill us but get us to buy whatever our bodies easily go
| for.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Ah, but does the diet cause the seed oil, or does the seed oil
| cause the diet? I suspect our diets would be better if
| addictive unhealthy food was less profitable.
| bodhi_mind wrote:
| A lot of actual research is being done on how gut microbiota
| affects inflammation, disease, immune system. Obviously health is
| a complicated subject that includes genetics and environment.
| moltar wrote:
| I'm not convinced the author of this post did enough research.
| Because some of the best resources were not mentioned. The
| leading meta researcher in this field is the author of the Fire
| in a Bottle blog who argues that linoleic acid itself doesn't
| necessarily make you fat. But it triggers torpor in animals to
| trigger pathways to start accumulating fat. It's like a trigger
| from nature. Because usually linoleic acid rich foods are
| available around fall which is when animals need to store weight
| before the winter.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean exactly by 'this field', and I'd
| never heard of this person, but in spending a few minutes
| looking him up, his work and his online presence - I find it
| hard to believe that 'the leading meta researcher in this
| field' is a very accurate description. I'd be curious for some
| more information justifying that.
| jtriangle wrote:
| It's very likely that you can blame most of what gets blamed on
| seed oil on diets that are abundant in simple carbohydrates, and
| seed oils are likely contributing in some way that's yet to be
| studied, but, eliminating those simple carbohydrates likely fixes
| things.
|
| I do like the sentiment of the article though, very science-
| positive with a healthy side of skepticism.
| smolder wrote:
| I doubt simple sugars are a serious threat by themselves
| either. The dose makes the poison. Straight candy is bad for
| you but having sugary cereal or an energy bar occasionally is
| not an issue. Industrialized diets encourage us to overcome
| calorie dense, overly processed foods. The biggest factor in
| disease related to that kind of diet could just be that the
| proportions of things are out of whack.
| OJFord wrote:
| The BMI percentiles over time chart is presumably meant to be
| shocking, but also shocking to me is how far back it goes being
| so high. The median [edit: 50yo] American would be obese in the
| UK as far back as [50yos' births in] 1920; I know it's a
| stereotype but I didn't realise it was that accurate (or as
| accurate as even that I mean).
|
| (Edit softens it a little, but still. It's on track to break US's
| own BMI obese line at 30 before long, I think it's sometimes
| called an epidemic and rightfully so in that sense? If the
| _median_ person in a country has a problematic characteristic
| that 's crazy isn't it, should be a bigger deal?)
| AlexErrant wrote:
| > My real worry about seed oil theory is that it's a distraction.
|
| Which do you think is worse: smoking, or seed oils?
|
| Which do you think is worse: smoking, or not exercising?
|
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
|
| Look at Figure 2C in particular. The hazard ratio of smoking is
| 1.41. The hazard ratio between "Low" (<25th percentile) and
| "Below Average" (25th-49th percentile) cardiovascular health is
| 1.95.
|
| In other words, it is better to be a smoker than in the lower 25%
| of non-exercisers. By far. It's not even close.
|
| Seed oils are 100% a distraction. Once you're in the upper 2.3%
| of vo2max for your age/sex, _then_ you have the right to worry
| about seed oils. Until then, save your energy for interval
| training.
|
| Minor in the minors, major in the majors.
| doublepg23 wrote:
| Are you aware of research that studies cigar smoking
| specifically?
|
| I've never been a cigarette smoker but enjoy a cigar a few
| times (2-3) a week in the summer (4 months or so out of the
| year). Obviously not smoking is better, but I'd like to have
| hard data what kind of risk I'm taking.
|
| Ex: is the risk similar to two drinks a day, is the risk
| similar to enjoying a bonfire or is it similar to an entire
| pack of cigarettes.
| aklemm wrote:
| I've been curious about this as well. For me I smoke maybe
| 2/month...one cigar a week at the very most. My guess is it's
| negligible compared to all the other toxic clouds we walk
| through in a given week. But hard data would be useful to
| see.
|
| Edit: Table 1 might have our answers https://cancercontrol.ca
| ncer.gov/sites/default/files/2020-08...
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| Pipe smoking is even better. The 1964 Surgeon Generals report
| found that so long as you don't inhale or smoke more than 3
| bowls per day, pipe smokers actually lived an average of 2
| years longer than NONSMOKERS.
| JauntTrooper wrote:
| Cigar and Pipe smoking increases the risk of oral, throat,
| and esophageal cancers at a similar rate to cigarettes.
|
| Here's one study:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3755640/
| tempsy wrote:
| The idea that someone can't or shouldn't focus on both exercise
| and diet is nonsense, as if you can't do both at the same time.
| tshaddox wrote:
| You seem to be hiding an assumption, which is that it only
| makes sense to completely solve the highest hazard ratio before
| even considering the next highest hazard ratio. But why would
| that be the case?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it only makes sense to completely solve the highest hazard
| ratio before even considering the next highest hazard ratio.
| But why would that be the case?_
|
| Seed-oil harm is nowhere close to the second-highest hazard.
| That's the point. If you're obsessing around optimising your
| oil consumption for health, you're probably missing lower-
| hanging fruit. It's fine to optimise on around the margins,
| but any more attention than that--assuming you are not a
| researcher--is overkill.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Speaking of smoking, it's been shown to have a significant
| impact on obesity. In that, it dramatically lowers your body
| weight because it increases your energy expenditure and
| decreases your hunger. Nicotine is a stimulant. As soon as you
| stop taking nicotine, your BMI is going up. The delta between
| smoker and non-smoker BMI in this study was 1.5kg/m^2 [1]
|
| The article argues that the median increase in BMI over time
| was 0.05kg/m^2/yr and the prevalence of smoking over the last
| 20 years dropped from like 60% to 10%. So smoking rate is going
| to account for a non-trivial amount of the increased median
| BMI.
|
| If it's true as you say that it's better to be a smoker now
| than a non-smoker -- it's only because you're going to lose
| weight, and that's your biggest risk factor for all-cause
| mortality.
|
| If it's just to lose weight then you're probably better off
| with ozempic than a pack of American Spirits.
|
| Also I dislike the article's use of BMI over very long
| timescales, going back to the 1800s. BMI is fine for most
| people these days (because most people have a lot of weight on
| them, see the article) but a lot of the 1800s BMI gain was
| probably just due to better nutrition not higher fat
| percentages. Over long time horizons we probably want to
| measure waist-to-height ratio or body fat percentages. The
| 1890s BMI delta was probably all lean mass, and good-to-neutral
| whereas the 1990s BMI delta was probably all fat mass and
| overwhelmingly bad.
|
| Anyways, it's almost certainly not seed oils.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3195407/
| danbolt wrote:
| I find the seed oil skepticism makes sense on kind of a
| lifestyle-y, psychic level. Like, the rhetoric always feels all-
| over-the-place like the author mentions compared to research on
| trans fat. It always struck me as a more emotional thing.
|
| Like, it lets people afraid of a seemingly scary, industrialized,
| effeminate, world feel virtuous, contrarian, and protected by
| tradition. Plus, you get to eat steaks and butter!
| addicted wrote:
| I've no real comment on the seed oils, etc. but I don't
| understand how someone can look at the "Animals vs plant based
| added fats and oils per capita" chart and conclude first that
| seed oils have increased in our diet relative to animal fats, and
| not the glaring fact that total fats have increased dramatically
| in our diets.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > Anything fried, obviously, but also instant noodles, chips,
| crackers, tortillas, cereal, energy bars, canned tuna, processed
| meats, plant-based meat, coffee creamer, broths, frozen dinners,
| salad dressing, and sauces. Also: Baby food, infant formula, and
| sometimes even ice cream or bread. People eat a lot more
| vegetable oil.
|
| The root of all evil is pretty out in front. When I was growing
| up outside of US, everything we cooked was in peanut oil, coconut
| oil, rice bran oil and cotton seed oil. Obesity was a rare
| occurrence and so were heart conditions for adults. But all of
| our food was entirely home made with the exception of the rare
| cola, chocolates and ice cream for celebrations. Fast forward 30
| years, there isn't a single item in stores that doesn't have palm
| oil. Palm oil is the choice of cooking oil in restaurants. And
| cooking at home has significantly gone down. Obesity and heart
| diseases are now common. My parents have a much worse health in
| their 60s than my grandparents did in their 60s. I have a worse
| health than my parents did at my age despite being more conscious
| about health and actively working towards it.
|
| Seed oils are not a problem, how much of it we have is a problem.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| _> Palm oil is the choice of cooking oil in restaurants_
|
| That's interesting, do you have any source for that? Is that in
| US?
|
| I know Palm oil is used in food production because it's neutral
| in taste, easy to process at industrial scale and overall
| stable in its characteristics.
|
| As a European, using Palm oil as cooking oil sounds crazy
| because it actually provides no benefit in a kitchen at all...
| byyoung3 wrote:
| My opinion is there doesn't seem to be any concerning evidence
| that not eating seed oils is bad. Therefore I avoid them, as
| there is little downside and high potential upside.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| Unless, as mentioned in the article, your saturated fat intake
| increases, which seems to be more measurably bad for you than
| seed oils. Of course, you might disagree with that assessment.
| temp6624 wrote:
| My gut instinct is that seed oils are probably bad, but I don't
| have hard evidence of this. Instead, I see them as a proxy for
| highly processed foods. Usually it's pretty accurate: If you find
| a seed oil in the ingredients list there's a good chance you'll
| also find other nasty stuff like HFCS, various preservatives,
| added sugar, and so on. Real food doesn't need seed oils and
| often times it's added for the benefit of the processing machines
| rather than the food.
|
| Eat real food, avoid processed crap, and you are 99% of the way
| there.
| kelipso wrote:
| I like how a bunch of posters here pooh poohed microplastics
| until more and more research came out and they couldn't keep
| their heads in the sand anymore. Don't worry, the same thing will
| happen here too.
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