To find the debate around seed oils confusing?

[Falsenegative]

I try and eat well. Minimise UPFs etc. I’m not obsessive or anything but try to keep an eye on it.

But I don’t know what to believe when it comes to seed oils, especially rare seed and sunflower. Some people say it’s got too much omega 6 to omega 3 and so is very unhealthy and leads to inflammation. But others, including the manufacturers, claim many health benefits. Anyone got any basic language knowledge of this?

I read the why we eat too much book and it was eye opening.

More than a little. Professor Sarah Berry says there is no reason at all to avoid seed oils. She knows what she's talking about, so I see no reason whatsoever to avoid them.

I use Extra Virgin Olive Oil mostly - yes, it’s much more expensive these days but I prefer to cook with something that hasn’t been ultra processed and I’m given to understand that only the EV oil is classed as “minimally processed”. A litre bottle lasts for ages and works out slightly cheaper, but I do appreciate that not everyone could justify £10 in one go just for olive oil.

Other than that I use butter, coconut oil (I use coconut block instead of coconut milk as the latter is a UPF, and the block comes with coconut oil at one end) or fat drained from cooked meat and saved for cooking with.

If you follow Dr Sarah Ballantyne’s work she is shifting her old perspectives based on more recent research (Nutrivore scoring). She is also now saying seed oils aren’t bad. So hard to keep up and know what to do for the best. Do the best you can/what works for you I say.

More than a little. Professor Sarah Berry says there is no reason at all to avoid seed oils. She knows what she's talking about, so I see no reason whatsoever to avoid them.

With all due respect there are contrasting opinions from equally knowledgeable people, I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket so to speak, we are far from being at the stage where we can conclusively say they're not harmful. It is of no consequence to me to stick with olive oil in the meantime, the only downside is cost which I can afford. I don't religious avoid seed oils in prepared foods (which is quite low anyway due to avoiding UPF as far as possible) so I take a pragmatic approach, but for me, it's not worth it to take the risk at this time.

Dr Idz on instagram has made quite a few videos about this where he looks at the data from a large number of controlled human studies.

https://www.instagram.com/dr_idz/reel/CqdY52-oW5c/

Rather than butter i use ghee (which can handle higher heat without burning) mostly for cooking and outside of that i use olive oil. Gave up all seed oils a while ago and i feel better for it

I thought cold pressed rapeseed oil had the best ratio of Omega 3 to omega 6 to the point it beats EVOO on that. But EVOO has other nutritional
high points. Is that wrong? Help!

I use cold pressed rapeseed oil for mayo and blended olive oil and EVOO for other things.

Just to be clear I am not a "dietician", I work for the NHS as a dietitian (proper spelling). It's the nutritionists you need to watch out for - they are not regulated in the same way and are not registered with the HCPC. But crack on and believe whatever you want if you think your nutrition and medical knowledge is better than mine. I have to evidence my CPD every year and it doesn't involve Tik Tok or any other kind of woo 🤣

Omg the Tik Zok experts

I ditched Rapeseed oil when I found out the plants get a pre-harvest drenching of weed killer. I'm not sure if all seed oil plants get the same glyphosate treatment but I avoid them anyway.

Potatoes too get a pre harvest drench of weed killer. Maybe organic ones don’t, I’ve no idea.

i thought the whole controversy around seed oils was the processing of them. That they put them through heavy chemical processes to produce them and that makes them toxic. If they are cold pressed they are safe? How much can one consume before they are harmful?

Way back in the mists of time, we were told that microwaves changed the molecular structure of food and they were the work of the devil. Furthermore if you used plastic wrap before microwaving it made the food cancerous. Turns out the poor rats in the lab were fed for months with food that had been microwaved FOR HOURS through multiple layers of plastic and yup they developed cancer. Make of that what you will.

I think that if you try to stick to foods that are as close as possible to how they came out of the ground, you won’t go far wrong. But I’m not wrangling three kids and a ft job.

People who don't fry things - what do you cook?!

I'd say 95% of the things we eat involve frying or using oil before putting in the oven...

to add to this there's the problem of a high quantity of "olive oil" apparently being adulterated at source, mixed with inferior quality oil making it really difficult to buy proper olive oil, even reputable brands. :(

scientific food testing is rare apparently as well.

it's a real gamble and i would wager that many people believing they are buying olive oil are buying something that is part olive oil, part cheaper oil.

My mother, who is nearly 92, uses lard for stews and so on. Her food is extremely tasty, but I won't be following suit in my kitchen.

But your mum’s nearly 92 and still doing her own cooking, so it can’t be all bad surely!?

As I understand it. Seed oils contain a substance designed to prevents animals noshing them all up so they’re slightly inflammatory. I may be wrong.

I thought olive oil counted as a seed oil?

Not that Im bothered, I use OO and EVOO and butter, thats it

Cant stand rapeseed oil, it tastes odd to me

Yes, there is that, but my husband and I both have high cholesterol and current advice is to avoid saturated fats for heart health. My mother doesn't have high cholesterol and in any case has reached a time of life where she doesn't give two hoots about prolonging life, rather the contrary.

It's used a lot in America. My understanding is that it was encouraged back in the 60s as a way to ensure corn crops were used and the farmers paid, but it's grown like topsy and now infiltrates most food products in the US.

It does make certain food stuffs taste good - generally the food you would class as "treats" so you end up consuming far more than you ought.

I often wonder this. A huge amount of what I cook starts with frying a chopped onion and possibly garlic and other vegetables. Are they perhaps saying they don't eat fried eggs, bacon, sausages, steak etc and deep-fried foods?

Therein lies the conundrum. Later generations are encouraged to avoid saturated fats like butter, lard etc., but the levels of cholesterol are high. Whereas previous generations consumed them in far higher quantities (there wasn't much alternative) and seemed not to have suffered as a result.

In fairness there are a lot of Mickey Mouse dietitians out there. I’ve never met one who didn’t have significant issues with food themselves.

I read somewhere that duck fat was actually a good (or at least not bad) alternative. Would your DH know if this is correct? It has some quite positive health reviews on Google.

This is the point to mention that my Dad, who mostly ate the food my Mum cooked and bought (lard and all), did have high cholesterol and high blood pressure and was on medication for both for many years. He didn't die of heart disease - I think the medication kept that at bay. He was 89 when he died from COPD which had led to heart failure and vascular issues. He had for many years used Flora rather than butter and they switched to semi-skimmed milk from full-fat, but other than that he didn't really adjust his diet for the heart issues. They always did eat plenty of vegetables and fruit, some pulses, some oily fish, and that all probably helped. He also ate Crunchy Bran for breakfast which I think is a source of soluble fibre.

Also, previous generations had far lower life expectancy. In my own extended family several men and one woman that I know of died of heart disease. Admittedly they were all smokers, which would have done a lot of damage, but their diet was poor by modern standards, and this was far enough back that statins weren't available and blood pressure wasn't well controlled.