Vegetable oils are killing you and they’re hidden in almost everything.
Vegetable oils are directly linked to almost every chronic disease. They cause:
- Cancer
- Obesity
- Alzheimer's
- Diabetes
Vegetable oil consumption has increased over 1000x since the 1900s. And they are now hidden in almost everything.
They are one of the main vehicles that has driven our health off a cliff.
What Are Vegetable Oils?
What are vegetable oils? First off, they’re not vegetables at all. A more fitting name would be industrial processed seed oil sludge.
In the early 1900s, an evil genius at Procter and Gamble came up with the idea to use cotton seeds — a toxic waste product — and turn them into a cooking oil.
What had originally been used for candle and soap was later discovered it could be used to hydrogenate the oil into a solid that resembled animal fats.
Behold…the birth of Crisco.
This means that vegetable oils are actually made from seeds, not vegetables. Below are some common ones:
- Corn
- Soybean
- Sunflower
- Canola
The great Dr. Cate Shanahan has a detailed guide on which ones are good fats and oils, which are bad and how to know what to look for.
Despite some of the heart healthy claims and labels, they’re all terrible for you.
Vegetable Oil Consumption is On The Rise
In 1900 heart disease was rare. By 1950 it was killing more men than any other disease.
Ancel Keys brainwashed us into believe saturated fats caused the crisis. But it was later revealed that shoddy statistics and corruption biased his conclusion. If you haven’t already read my article about how a man by the name of Ancel Keys brainwashed the masses into fearing meat, go do that now. It’s all connected.
However, if you look at the backdrop before the heart health epidemic, you cannot ignore the rise of vegetable oils as a dietary staple. This was led by the efforts of Procter & Gamble and their new creation, Crisco, the first shortening to be made entirely of vegetable oil.
Starting in 1911, crisco was adeptly marketed by Procter & Gamble as a more versatile butter. It could be used for frying, baking and cooking. It could be stored at room temperature. They even claimed it was easier to digest and healthier too.
Vegetable oil consumption went from 11 pounds per person per year to 59.
Yet Ancel Keys and the AHA blamed the entire heart attack epidemic on butter, a food that was falling in consumption.
So here’s how the story goes:
Step 1: Get everybody to eat hydrogenated vegetable oils under the guise of health
Step 2: See massive heart disease increase
Step 3: Blame it on butter and natural fats, and tell people to eat MORE of the vegetable oils
Step 4: Pharma, doctors and CPG companies profit. The individual loses.
This sums up the last 100 years of health. Our genetic code has only changed ~0.005% over the last 40,000 years but our diets have changed over 1000x <*>
Because of Ancel Keys and the government’s dietary recommendations, these vegetable oils are now found everywhere.
If you're interested in some other alternatives to vegetable oils, sign up below for my guide on my 5 favorite cooking fats.
Why Is Vegetable Oil Bad For You?
Before we get into the actual consequences, why are vegetable oils so damaging?
#1 Fatty Acid Instability
There are three kinds of fatty acids:
- Polyunsaturated fatty acids
- Monounsaturated fatty acids
- Saturated fatty acids
What delineates between the three are how many double bonds each has.
Polyunsaturated acids are naturally occuring.
Canola oil has a high poly and monounsaturated fatty acid content (the form of polyunsaturated fatty acid is linoleic acid).
This is different from butter, which is almost all saturated fat. But what makes them of interest is that because of the multiple double bonds, they’re highly unstable.
It’s why butter is a solid at room temperature and canola oil is not.
The double bonds allow oxygen to sneak in and oxidize the fatty acids, particularly when heated. When “oxidized” they produce free radicals. Free radicals are electrons that play a role in every known disease.
They are unpaired electrons looking to find a match. In the process of doing so, they restructure every single cell they come into contact with. Think of them like a drunk person in a single’s bar.
Cooking foods in vegetable oils blasts them with these free radicals, which can destroy every cell in your body. It also produces toxic by-products discussed below.
#2 Toxic Byproducts
When broken down and oxidized, polyunsaturated fatty acids produce toxic byproducts. One type of polyunsaturated acid in particular, omega 6’s, produce the worst toxins.
The three best studied toxins are Acrolein, HNE and MDA. Acrolein is the toxin found in cigarette smoke that causes lung damage. It is a biocide, meaning it kills all life. HNE and MDA are both cytotoxic and mutagenic -- they kill cells and alter DNA.
And worst of all is that these toxic byproducts are highly reactive, leading to a cascade of toxic byproduct production when they’re in your body. Think of them like reactive zombies that infect every other fatty acid.
#3 Omega 3: Omega 6 Ratio
You may have heard of omega 3 and omega 6s. These are polyunsaturated fatty acids. Omega 3s have their first double bond on the 3rd carbon and omega 6s have their first double bond on the 6th. They are both polyunsaturated fatty acids.
Vegetable oils, like canola oil, are predominantly omega 6 fatty acids, such as linoleic acid.
Omega 3s and omega 6s are critical structural components. They have conflicting physiological effects, so the ratio between the two in the diet is important.
As you replace omega 3s with omega 6s in your diet, your body rapidly converts your structural components into whichever you consume. This shows up directly in human fatty tissue. As a result, from 1960 to 1986, the linoleic acid content in human fat tripled from 6% to 18% <*>.
If our body was a house, we’d be constructed with radioactive nuclear waste instead of sturdy concrete under this new paradigm.
Additionally, a diet high in the omega 6: omega 3 ratio shifts your body to a proinflammatory state. And inflammation has been implicated in every chronic disease.
People in the paleolithic world were eating an omega 6 : omega 3 ratio of less than one. But because of canola and vegetable oils, the ratio has increased to over 15x in modern times.
Pretty much every disease can be linked to this increase. <*>
There’s also evidence that omega 6 fatty acids inhibit the anti-inflammatory effects of omega 3s <*>.
Diseases Directly Linked to Vegetable Oils
Vegetable oils via the mechanisms above are implicated in almost every disease.
Vegetable oils cause all of the following:
- Alzheimer’s
- Cancer
- Insulin resistance
- Acne
- Heart disease
- Autism
- Dementia
- Heart disease
- Autoimmune disorders
- Leaky gut
We are about to touch on a handful of them below.
Alzheimers and Cognitive Disorders
Vegetable oils are the worst thing for your brain. It’s like cutting your head open and putting an iron directly on its surface. Maybe even worse, because at least that would get out some of the wrinkles...
HNE, the toxic byproduct mentioned above, is always found in damaged areas of the brain. And injecting it directly into rodents has been shown to cause the amyloid plaques which are typical of Alzheimer's disease <*>.
In another study on mice, a diet high in canola oil was shown to significantly impair memory and lead to amyloid plaques <*>.
Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by reduced synapse activity and energy impairment. One of the main causes is the buildup of these plaques. Another is from deficient energy generation. HNE has been shown to damage mitochondrial ATP generation <*> -- the fuel needed for your brain.
Lastly, HNE has been shown to increase oxidative stress in the brain and destroy the nerve cell highways called microtubules <*>.
Your brain is 60% fat and it’s composed of the fat that you consume. If you consume toxic, unstable, inflammatory fats, then that is what your brain will be made of. As the saying goes, “you are what you eat.”
Eating vegetable oils turns your brain into Chernobyl -- a nuclear wasteland.
No wonder cognitive disorders are on the rise.
Cancer
Cancer is caused by oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction and genetic damage. Seed oils have been shown to cause all three.
Linoleic acid is even required in animal models to induce cancer. This study pictured below showed that tumors started once rats consumed 20% of fatty acids in the form of linoleic acid. Without the oxidative byproducts, cells reproduce normally and retain metabolic functionality <*>.
One of the main mechanisms by which vegetable oils cause cancer is through cardiolipin damage. Cardiolipin is one of the main phospholipids in the mitochondria -- the energy powerhouse of the cell.
When cardiolipin is damaged, this impairs the mitochondria’s metabolic efficiency, which is one of the hallmarks of cancer (the Warburg Effect) <*>. No tumor has ever been found with normal cardiolipin <*>. Ultimately, damaged cardiolipin causes a vicious cycle which damages metabolism and causes the production of even more toxic byproducts.
This theory has been propounded by Thomas Seyfried who deemed cancer a mitochondrial metabolic disease <*>. The connection to seed oils is profound given HNE and seed oils’ primary mechanism of damage is to the mitochondria’s metabolism.
HNE has also been shown to mutate mitochondrial DNA and cause oxidative damage. It also damages the p53 gene, which is a tumor suppressor <*>. Damage to this gene occurs in many cancers.
Once again, this is due to the mutagenic properties of seed oils and their unstable nature.
What’s clear is that the rise of all these cancers is not a fluke. It’s a direct corollary of the increase in vegetable oil consumption and the disastrous AHA recommendations.
And lastly, the gold standard of studies -- a controlled study (instead of the epidemiological nonsense) showing that over an eight year period, a group of men treated with a diet high in vegetable oils had 2x the cancer rate <*>.
It’s like the entire world is smoking packs of cigarettes, getting lung cancer and we’re encouraging them to do even more of it.
Diabetes
Diabetes is characterized by insulin resistance and high levels of blood sugar. It’s caused after pancreas’ beta cells no longer secrete adequate insulin to halt hepatic glucose production (the liver’s release of glucose).
Seed oils play a large causal role.
In this study below, mice were placed on a high fat diet <*>. One group consumed olive oil and the other consumed vegetable oils.
The group of mice consuming vegetable oils developed insulin resistance and the group consuming olive oil did not. This study is fascinating because carbohydrates played no role in the induction of insulin resistance.
Another study showed that vegetable oils damage the GLUT4 transporter, which ultimately reduces the efficacy of insulin <*>, while this study showed that soybean oil was a more potent inducer of diabetes than fructose -- one of the most commonly suspected causes.
It’s like ranking between the damage caused by heroin, crack, and meth. Seed oils may just be the worst offender of almost any junk you can eat.
Heart Disease
As we discussed in a previous article, there’s no such thing as good and bad cholesterol. What’s bad is when good cholesterol gets damaged. Cholesterol is one of the most vital molecules, which is why your body produces so much every day (in fact over 70% of your cholesterol is produced endogenously).
How do you damage your cholesterol particles? Sugar and vegetable oils. Two of the first things you cut out on the carnivore diet.
How do vegetable oils damage cholesterol particles?
Lipoproteins like LDL, the floaties that carry around fats and cholesterol in your body, are more prone to oxidation when they’re carrying linoleic acid (LA) as cargo. It’s like a plane that’s more likely to crash because all the passengers are drunk (not necessarily true…).
Once LDL is oxidized, LDL receptors no longer recognize it. Instead, the immune system takes over. When LDL is oxidized, your body intentionally pulls it into your artery walls to prevent them from causing damage elsewhere <*>.
These damaged lipoproteins will then cause an inflammatory response, foam cells, and plaquing. Macrophages basically ingest the modified LDL and turn into foam cells. Over time, these foam cells form fatty streaks and ultimately can turn into atherosclerotic plaque.
Yes, cholesterol is present when there is plaquing that causes heart disease. But it is generally this oxidized cholesterol.
In fact, two researchers discovered that LDL must be oxidized to cause macrophages to form foam cells <*>. In other words, lesions do not form because of healthy LDL, no matter how high LDL levels are.
Another recently unearthed clinical trial that tried to test the diet heart hypothesis backfired.
Data from the Minnesota Coronary Experiment conducted by Ancel Keys was unearthed in 2017 after 40 years of sitting dormant.
It was one of the most comprehensive to date: randomized and controlled with 9,400 participants.
The control group continued to eat a diet high in saturated fats and animal fats. The intervention group ate a serum cholesterol lowering diet that replaced saturated fat with vegetable oils (from corn oil and corn oil polyunsaturated margarine).
Results: the intervention group had a 14% reduction in cholesterol but a 22% increase in mortality.
This should have been the nail in the coffin for the diet-heart-hypothesis, but it was completely buried. Cholesterol went down, while deaths went up. Likely because of the increased ox LDL content.
We’ve had our eye on the wrong ball all along. Oxidized cholesterol, not healthy cholesterol, causes heart disease. This is why the level of oxidized LDL is one of the best biomarkers for heart disease. <*>
Aging
The great lengths people go to stay young. If only they would cut out vegetable oils and start fasting, they wouldn’t need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on facial rejuvenation, botox, and Beverly Hills plastic surgeries.
What is aging?
Aging is a mitochondrial disease, characterized by increased inflammation, oxidative stress and reduced autophagy (the cellular cleansing process). Over time it’s natural to age, but vegetable oils accelerate all three processes.
As discussed above, the high omega 6 content in vegetable oils disrupt our natural omega 6 : omega 3 ratio and encourage a pro inflammatory state. This chronic low grade inflammation accelerates the aging process. Whereas diets higher in omega 3 fats reduce aging and increase mitochondrial efficiency.
And this is where the vicious cycle begins...as you experience chronic low grade inflammation your mitochondria gets damaged and produces free radicals that end up accelerating damage further.
As you age, the balance between healthy and dysfunctional mitochondria is disrupted.
As discussed above, one of the most pernicious effects of vegetable oil consumption is mitochondrial mutation. Just 4 weeks of increased consumption of vegetable oils causes mitochondria in rates <*>.
Lastly, most people eating vegetable oils are also eating 6+ meals a day (i.e. grazing). This shuts off autophagy, and prevents their body from cleaning out the dysfunctional mitochondria and generating new ones.
Obesity
More evidence continues to emerge that the caloric theory of obesity is about as right as the earth is flat.
Food is a signaling molecule. Different fatty acids and their metabolites (byproducts) change everything from hunger to fat accumulation.
Recent studies have shown that exposing mice to a high omega 6 diet results in the accumulation of body fat across generations. This study showed that each generation that consumed omega 6s became fatter than the previous.
Why? For one, HNE triggers fat accumulation by altering fat tissues. This study in C. Elegans -- a yeast -- showed that HNE signaled to cells that they should be storing fat instead of burning it.
Another study in rats tested 3 diets composed of varying amounts of soybean oil. The percentages ranged from 1% to 22%, which is representative of the western diet.
Calories were identical but all three test groups gained more than twice the amount of weight. Just 1% of calories from linoleic acid can induce weight gain. There is no such thing as moderation here...
Whereas Omega 3 acids encourage beta oxidation -- burning fat for fuel -- omega 6 fatty acids suppress it <*>.
Beware. Vegetable oils are now hiding everywhere.
Vegetable oils are now hiding absolutely everywhere. Everything from salad dressings, to pasta, to cereal and chips all are loaded with these vegetable oils. You’d be hard pressed to find anything without them in a grocery store.
If you’re unaware of this issue it’s extremely difficult to avoid them.
Even the so called healthy places -- like Whole Foods -- cook everything with canola oil.
This has been the single biggest change to our health over the last 100 years...and there have been a lot.
You need to be on the lookout for these health nuclear bombs. Instead, eat tallow. One of the most nutritious foods there is.
Conclusion
There are now so many ingrained interests in ensuring this ball keeps rolling down hill. The people making millions selling these “heart healthy oils”. The doctors treating the consequences of the damage. The pharmaceutical companies making drugs to dampen the blow. There are way too many Mercedes and private school educations on the line here to turn this ship around.
But each of us has it in our own power to take back control of our health. The first step starts with removing this poison from our diet.
After removing all the junk from your diet, replace it with the most nutritious food in the world -- animal products.
The best way to start is with the carnivore diet.
If you want to continue this journey and start improving your health, sign up for my guide below on my 5 favorite cooking fats.