Oil Change

The Truth about Seed Oils

There’s a lot of controversy right now about “seed oils,” a term that refers specifically to processed, generally odorless supermarket staples like corn oil, canola (or rapeseed) oil and soybean oil. The so-called “hateful eight” seed oils list also includes safflower, sunflower, rice bran, cottonseed, grape seed and peanut oils, and anything labeled, in a stroke of marketing genius, as “vegetable” oil. (Vegetables are healthy, right?)

oils are not created equal (image credit: https://www.aboutoliveoil.org)

We’ve long been told by the FDA and its associated organs (pun intended, I guess) that these seed oils represent healthy alternatives to saturated fats (like butter and bacon grease) and trans fats (like Crisco). But the waters are muddied by the fact that none of the research I’m aware takes quality into account. It may well be that ultra-processed canola oil is healthier (i.e. less bad) than lard from unwell pigs who’ve lived in sedentary captivity and been force-fed grains, antibiotics and growth hormones their whole lives. That doesn’t make canola oil healthy.

Heavily-refined seed oils have pro-inflammatory characteristics, in part because their chemical processing removes natural antioxidant compounds, and in part because they’re heavy on omega-6 fatty acids.

Omega 6’s optimally should be in a certain ratio with the brain and heart-healthy Omega-3’s found in foods like wild fish and grass-fed butter. When that ratio gets skewed toward the more widespread Omega-6’s, inflammation tends to ensue, along with a cascade of other undesirable effects that can include endocrine disruption (your hormones getting screwed up).

Besides, there’s good reason to doubt the FDA and USDA’s nutritional claims. Remember when they said margarine (a chemically-altered trans fat of the type now illegal in New York) was healthy? Unfortunately institutional research science is notoriously prone to bias and corruption. I suggest defaulting to common sense.

To call seed oils “poison” as RFK, Jr. did is something of an exaggeration. Or aty rate, As poisons go seed oils things are exceedingly gentle, on par with white flour and sugar. Many a healthy person can get away with eating a bit of these things semi-regularly; it’s regular, heavy consumption that’s worrisome, especially in the context of other processed foods. Still, they’re not ideal components of our diets.

More than anything, seed oils are a missed opportunity to get more wholesome, healthy and flavorful fats.

We may all be exposed to these foods at times, unless we live in a bubble. But there’s little reason to use them in the home kitchen.

What to use instead?

Olive oil will do nicely in anything Mediterranean or Middle Eastern (just don’t heat the extra virgin kind too hot, it’s really best for drizzling). Watch out for the adulterated stuff, which is commoner than you think. Extra Virgin Olive oil should be green and smell and taste distinctly olive-y, typically with grassy/herbal notes and a spicy pungency you can feel in the back of your throat. (Flavorless, yellow olive pomace oil is a chemically-extracted by-product — avoid.)

Butter (grass-fed) works in anything Northern or Central European. If a baking recipe calls for, say, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, try substituting melted butter. Again, quality matters, not all butter is created equal. I doubt any of the research pointing to health problems associated with butter was performed using Irish butter like Kerrygold, with its high proportion of fat-soluble nutrients and antioxidants.

West African food generally uses red palm oil (look for sustainable sources, as sadly most palm oil comes from environmentally wretched plantations), and Indonesian and Sri Lankan cuisines are great opportunities to use virgin coconut oil. Ghee is wonderful stuff for Indian cooking, and to have around in general.

For high-heat stir fries and the like, get a hold of some pastured lard, which with its high smoke point resists oxidation. Like other animal fats, lard is healthy if (and only if) the animals it came from were healthy, so get yours at the local farm stand and never in the supermarket aisle. Other potentially healthy animal fats include duck fat, tallow (beef fat) and schmaltz (chicken fat). Quality matters; keep in mind that “the soul of the animal is in the fat” and choose accordingly.

These stable, saturated animal fats are ideal for breaking out on Fry Night, which I’m guessing/hoping is a rare home occasion. You don’t need a deep fryer; a wok is the perfect shape to get the fat to pool at depth without using a ton. And the results of using duck fat or lard here are well worth it: far tastier than anything canola or peanut oil is capable of.

If you’re still having trouble getting used to the idea that butter and lard can actually be healthy, check out the work of the Weston A. Price Foundation, as popularized by Sally Fallon in her book Nourishing Traditions. (Fallon the ultra-carnivore goes a little far for my taste, but her book is still a worthy counterpoint to so much of what we’ve been told by what she calls the “diet dictocrats.”)

It’s well worth pointing out that unrefined, cold-pressed or expeller-pressed seed oils are a whole different kettle of fish from the “hateful eight” seed oils we’ve been discussing (corn oil, canola oil, etc.). If your seed oil smells like the seed it was pressed from, and it hasn’t gone rancid (it shouldn’t be bitter or leave a bad aftertaste), then it’s just fine. Examples include sesame oil and pumpkin seed oil. I’ve very occasionally run into high quality cold-pressed sunflower oil as well.

In general, fat should have flavor of its own (as well as carrying flavor. Don’t be scared of either one, flavor or fat. Trust your nose, and cook the way your great-great-grandparents would have, and its hard to go too far astray.

I hope now you’re ready to purge your shelves of tasteless, valueless over-refined seed oils. I recommend doing so en masse, in the form of a home “oil change.”

Into the compost (or better yet, the biodiesel bin) go the deodorized yellow industrial greases we’ve been sold for too long. In to replace them come a colorful range of oils and fats you can recognize at a sniff. Food that smells and tastes like food! What a revelation. May they inspire your cooking as much as they nourish your family.