Seed Oils…what are they…are they an issue and were we misled.

Seed Oils...what are they, are they an issue and were we misled?

Trust me, I am no expert but I spent most of my life in laboratories fooling around with all kinds of chemicals so I developed a need to read scientific literature and also a very healthy skepticism for everything I was told or led to believe. Of course, back in the day, I had to go to the encyclopedia or ask to go to the library. Now, we have everything at our fingertips which is nice but you need to have your BS detector at full alert and recognize those that will say anything to get your attention. Of course, the internet is awash in idiots and liars but unfortunately it seems that is also true of institutions that we would assume could be trusted. Oh, you mean scientists, medical authorities, pharmaceutical industry, agriculture, food manufacturers, main stream media and THE GOVERNMENT ?

Did you know that Crisco was originally made from cottonseed oil? Proctor and Gamble's brilliant marketing campaign for the original Crisco, an alternative to lard that went on sale in 1911. "It's all vegetable! It's digestible!", it proclaimed. Crisco, you may recall, was made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, a process that turned cottonseed oil (and later, soybean oil) from a liquid into a solid, like lard, that was perfect for baking and frying.

Unfortunately, these wonderful qualities depended on "trans fats" that have since been implicated in heart disease. As a result, partially hydrogenated oils have fallen out of favor in the food industry. Even Crisco changed its recipe, cutting the amount of trans fats in one serving to less than .5 grams. That allows Crisco's label to state that it contains zero trans fats.

Did you know that the same seed oils used in food are often the same as used in paint? Years ago, as petroleum products became less expensive than seed oils (store brand canola oil is $10.00 a gallon) and replaced them in paints and other industrial products, leaving farmers with a dilemma. Also, studies were released that indicated that saturated fats elevated cholesterol and contributed to heart disease. So, what can we do with all this extra corn, canola (rapeseed), soybeans etc.? Hey, why not express the oils and sell it for cooking oil? The problem is these oils are prone to oxidation will go rancid in storage and break down under high heat. So, how do we make them stable?

Meet German chemist Wilhelm Normann who showed in 1901 that liquid oils could be hydrogenated, and patented the process in 1902. Normann's hydrogenation process made it possible to stabilize affordable whale oil or fish oil for human consumption, a practice kept secret to avoid consumer distaste. During the years from 1905–1910, Normann built a fat-hardening facility in the Herford company. At the same time, the invention was extended to a large-scale plant in Warrington, England, at Joseph Crosfield & Sons, Limited. It took only two years until the hardened fat could be successfully produced in the plant in Warrington, commencing production in late 1909. The initial year's production totaled nearly 3,000 tonnes. In 1909, Procter & Gamble acquired the United States rights to the Normann patent; in 1911, they began marketing the first hydrogenated shortening, Crisco (composed largely of partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil). Further success came from the marketing technique of giving away free cookbooks in which every recipe called for Crisco.

Before 1910, added dietary fats in industrialized nations consisted mostly of butterfat, beef tallow, and lard.

The many details aside, our fatty acid profile is one of the main things that has drastically changed since our early evolution.

Evolution has obviously designated SFA/MUFA (saturated fatty acid/monosaturated fatty acid) as the bulk of fats in animals for SOME reason, since it is those that are synthesized from carbs/rumination products. I realize evolution doesn't act much on longevity, but there still must be an evolutionary benefit at a younger age.

Linoleic acid is, in my opinion, one of the least satiating calorie sources long term. LA is the precursor for hunger-inducing cannabinoids (natural munchies), experimentally proven to raise them (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22334255/). The food industry knows this, that's why LA and fructose are their golden children. Artificially induced hunger + palatability = profit.

PUFAs include both omega 3 and omega 6. I'm not opposed to PUFAs as a whole but there are a few things to say about their role in the diet.

Human diets never included large amounts of omega 6. Thanks to vegetable oils popularised in the 20th century, modern diets are now eating a lot of omega 6 and not enough omega 3. The ratio seems to be important in affecting the composition of cell membranes and the resulting signalling molecules (eicosanoids etc) that are formed.

Traditional healthy diets, like in the mediterranean, would eat a lot of MUFA (olive) and SFA (dairy/pork) and only get their PUFAs from fish and nuts. It inherently has a good omega 6:3 ratio and is hard to be high in total PUFA. MUFA and SFA just appear to be good sources of bulk calories, while PUFAs are more like signalling molecules that occur in trace amounts. So really don't need to eat high amounts of the stuff, a few nuts and fish will easily cover you.

PUFAs are thermally unstable and PUFA oils should not be heated - just get them from nuts and mayonnaises if you want to eat them. Deepfryers used to be flled with beef tallow (SFA + MUFA). Then they switched to partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (transfat + SFA). Then they realised that that was killing people and now they just put regular liquid vegetable oils in the fryers. It is still killing people. PUFAs decompose over a matter of hours into lipid hydroperoxides and then a range of harmful aldehydes and polymers. These PUFA lipid oxidation products are sometimes a lot like the signalling molecules they're also used for in the body, for example, malondialdehyde is found in heated vegetable oils and is also a marker of inflammation in the body.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7254282/

Potential Adverse Public Health Effects Afforded by the Ingestion of Dietary Lipid Oxidation Product Toxins: Significance of Fried Food Sources

Exposure of polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA)-rich culinary oils (COs) to high temperature frying practices generates high concentrations of cytotoxic and genotoxic lipid oxidation products (LOPs) via oxygen-fueled, recycling peroxidative bursts. These toxins, including aldehydes and epoxy-fatty acids, readily penetrate into fried foods and hence are available for human consumption; therefore, they may pose substantial health hazards. Although previous reports have claimed health benefits offered by the use of PUFA-laden COs for frying purposes, these may be erroneous in view of their failure to consider the negating adverse public health threats presented by food-transferable LOPs therein. When absorbed from the gastrointestinal (GI) system into the systemic circulation, such LOPs may significantly contribute to enhanced risks of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs), e.g. , cancer, along with cardiovascular and neurological diseases. Herein, we provide a comprehensive rationale relating to the public health threats posed by the dietary ingestion of LOPs in fried foods.

Karl Denninger has been raising Cain about this for years. This post goes into detail. CAUTION…his language and tone can be abrasive.

https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231343

Scientific Info on Linoleic Acid courtesy MDPI Open Access Journals www.mdpi.com (very cool for nerds)

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/5/2/25

Oh well, time to stop ranting. Got garden stuff to do. Its nice outside. Take Care.