[lithocarpus]

Two things can be harmful at once.

I am curious which is worse in terms of contribution to modern chronic metabolic disease.

In the case of ultra-processed/refined oils though, there is an argument to be made that these are novel foods that humans never ate until very recently. There aren't any old people who have been eating them their whole lives in the quantities we do now. This is probably true for industrially refined sugar too, but sugar is a more complex story since people have been concentrating plant sugars for a lot longer than they've been industrially refining oil for food.

I'm not defending sugar though to be clear - I strictly avoid it and even avoid fruit juice and such. I know empirically for myself I feel terrible if I eat very much sugar. I also feel terrible if I eat much refined oil and I strictly avoid that too.

[brippalcharrid]

They can also tend to be harmful in combination, such as in the case of relatively unstable unsaturated fatty acids going on to be glycated in the presence of sugars (some moreso than others); it wouldn't surprise me at all if there were examples such as this which fuelled a significant proportion of all "diseases of civilization".

[sinuhe69]

Really? I don't know exactly how long people have been eating oil from olive, flax seed, sesame, coconut or palm nut, but I believe not under 6000–7000 years. But yeah, not the stuff we eat today.

[lithocarpus]

Yes, I wasn't talking about unrefined olive, flax, sesame, or coconut. I don't think most people concerned about "seed oils" are concerned about those.

It's the refined soybean oil, canola/rapeseed oil, cottonseed oil, grapeseed oil, sunflower seed oil, corn oil, safflower oil, peanut oil - these are the modern refined oils I'm referring to that were never eaten until very recently. I'd be dubious of refined / ultra processed olive and avocado oil too, which is a different thing from fresh cold pressed olive or avocado oil.

[jandrewrogers]

It isn’t clear at all how refining oil makes it materially “worse” in terms of health than the unrefined equivalent. That claim lacks both evidence and a mechanism of action.

Every argument I’ve seen demonstrates a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of the chemistry. These same bad chemistry takes are repeated everywhere by influencers. This isn’t unique to the oil discussions, dietary health is rife with vibe-based chemistry takes that are obviously unscientific.

[leereeves]

Among other mechanisms, refining removes nutrients and other beneficial molecules, while purifying taste and reducing volume making it easier to overeat.

But the worst part isn't refining the oil itself, but the use of these oils in ultra-processed foods along with refined sweeteners, colorings, and fillers. Even if refined seed oils themselves aren't harmful, avoiding them is likely to be beneficial because it leads to avoiding ultra-processed foods.

[array_key_first]

Colorings and fillers are not that bad for you. You, and other, are missing the forest for the trees here: diets high in fat, sugar, and calories lead to heart disease and metabolic syndrome.

Replacing "seed oils" with hamburgers and french fries fried in tallow won't magically help your health. If anything, you would die quicker from the huge amount of saturated fat you're now intaking.

Ultra processed foods are bad generally, yes, but not because they're processed, but because they're high in fat and sugar, while being calorically dense with no nutritional value.

[leereeves]

> Replacing "seed oils" with hamburgers and french fries fried in tallow won't magically help your health. If anything, you would die quicker from the huge amount of saturated fat you're now intaking.

I'd like to see your evidence for the first claim.

The second claim is not as well supported as you might think. A recent Cochrane review published by The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) rated "Reduction in Saturated Fat Intake for Cardiovascular Disease" as having Unclear Benefits with no significant effect on all-cause or cardiovascular mortality. This is based on randomized controlled trials that measured endpoints directly rather than LDL levels.

https://www.aafp.org/afp/2022/0100/od2#afp20220100p19a-b3

[gruez]

>Among other mechanisms, refining removes nutrients and other beneficial molecules, while purifying taste and reducing volume making it easier to overeat.

Should we cancel vaccines and water purification while we're at it? It's not hard to come up with vaguely plausible reasons for why those are bad as well, eg. "hygiene hypothesis", "gut microbiome", or whatever.

>But the worst part isn't refining the oil itself, but the use of these oils in ultra-processed foods along with refined sweeteners, colorings, and fillers. Even if refined seed oils themselves aren't harmful, avoiding them is likely to be beneficial because it leads to avoiding ultra-processed foods.

It's ironic you cite ultra-processed foods, another category which has questionable rigor and applicability, but people nonetheless defend because "Even if ultra processed foods themselves aren't harmful, avoiding them is likely to be beneficial because it leads to avoiding unhealthy foods."

[leereeves]

> It's ironic you cite ultra-processed foods, another category which has questionable rigor and applicability, but people nonetheless defend because "Even if ultra processed foods themselves aren't harmful, avoiding them is likely to be beneficial because it leads to avoiding unhealthy foods."

The evidence that ultra processed foods are harmful is quite strong, much stronger than the association with saturated fat intake. Are you really suggesting that they might not be unhealthy?

[bryanlarsen]

~10,000 years is also evolutionary recent. It's enough time for fast evolution to weed out stuff that is very directly maladaptive, but not enough time to weed out more subtle effects. And given that a bad diet tends to kill people well past their prime childbearing years, evolution might consider a bad diet a good thing.

[lithocarpus]

Good point, there are a lot of diseases of civilization that have been with us since large scale agriculture, that did not afflict most hunter gatherers.

[anon84873628]

To add, sunflower seed use predated maíz in some parts of North America, and mustard oil goes back to the Indus Valley Civilization.

Yes, the extraction of these oils is "novel" just like factory farms are novel. As the article explains, it is the ultra-processed food products that are the problem, not the seed oil ingredients.

[basch]

There is also sunflower oil and high oleic sunflower oil, the latter, which after refinement is incredibly heat and shelf stable, and is essentially pure omega-9 monounsaturated fat.

The anti refinement process perspective is discounting that the end result is the perfect fat.

A similar thing can be said about hydrolyzed collagen with a little tryptophan added.

[pandaman]

When people are talking about seed oils they rarely mean olive oil, usually it's "canola oil" (considering what "canola" stands for it's insulting not just to one's digestive system but intellect too).