I’ve seen information that says anything from canola to olive to coconut to rapeseed oil is bad for you.
Apparently there are strong links with heart disease, it oxidises cells in your body, shortness lifespan etc.
Is this stuff actually true? If so, is there neutral research on this that says this?
And how bad would foods that contain oils be? Like flaxseed, coconut, hemp seed etc etc
I had some markers of inflammation in my blood work (lp-PLA2 and Lipoprotein a) that my doctor could not explain. He insisted it was genetic and wanted to put me on a medication that I’d have to be on the rest of my life.
I politely told him no, and after doing some research of my own, I cut seed oils completely from my diet, and lowered those numbers by 40% in only 3 months. Also, lost 10 lbs. without even trying to lose weight.
I still eat olive oil, but I don’t use it with high heat cooking. I also eat avocado oil, ghee and beef tallow.
OP, you should refine your question a little bit. Are you really asking about ANY oil or just seed oils (named by producers “VEGETABLE OILS” to give them some sort of health aura)? Olives, avocados and coconut oils are actually FRUIT OILS ;-)
The question, as-is, can be taken in too many directions… :-(
Anyway, everyone here should watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kGnfXXIKZM&
Vegetable oils are fine as long as:
So putting extra virgin olive oil (unrefined) on your salad is perfectly fine, and its a healthy choice.
The problem is that a lot of vegetable oils that you can buy are refined and unfortunately thermal processing of oils with a lot of polyunsaturated acids leads to creation of a lot of toxic by-products. The whole process of refining is really bad for vegetable oils and involves bleaching and even deodorization to get rid of the stench, and it only serves one purpose: to make the oil last longer on the shelves, but not necessarily to make it healthy.
On the other hand, if you want to use the oil to cook - then coconut oil, or animal fats like butter will be the way to go - the reason being that they have a lot of saturated acids which means their chemical stucture doesn’t change when they are hated.
If you want more informations here’s a great video that clears up a lot of things about that matter:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pljQrjiDC9Q
TL;DR:
use cold pressed, unrefined vegetable oil on your salad
and cook on coconut oil/butter - or just any oil/fat with a lot of saturated acids
Refined vegetable oils are bad for you. It’s a type of fat our bodies didn’t evolve to eat and they have harmful additives.
Pure natural oils like olive and coconut are good, provided you don’t burn them or let them go rancid.
The information about vegetable oils you are hearing is about the extremely processed vegetable oils. This does not include coconut, olive or avocado (sesame can be included in here just don’t cook with it).
Vegetable oil + seed oils are not good for you, because of the process they go through to achieve the selfed product - honestly YouTube the process it’s disgusting
Extra virgin olive oil cold pressed - amazing oil to have raw, fats become unstable when cooked at high temps. Other oils like coconut, tallow is a great option too for frying
They’re fine. Not so much coconut oil.
The fear-mongering around them is ideological, not evidence-based. No honest person can look at the evidence overall and the substitution studies and say they’re worse.
If vegetable and seed oils in the American diet were completely eliminated and replaced with something like Palm oil the consequences would be absolutely disastrous.
You might want to read up about the Paleo diet - it covers different types of fats, among other things. Mark’s Daily Apple (website) is one recommendation.
Personally, I use a ton of butter, olive oil or coconut oil for frying and use very small amounts of sesame oil for flavour. I haven’t bought rapeseed oil for close to a decade and I avoid margarine like the plague.
From current state of knowledge:
- no trans fat at all (mostly in cakes, cookies, fast food, instant soups and sauces, sausages etc) !
- avoid fats which got heated at high temperature (above 160°C) or too long or often after another like anything fried in oil, fat can become trans fat if heated too high or long, also avoid old or oxidated/rancid oils. omega 3 can easily become rancid, like lineseed and should be bought fresh and use it in a few weeks, keep it in fridge.
- monounsaturated fatty acid seem to have a positive healthy effect, like in olive oil or Avocados (Oleic acid / omega 9)
- no evidence that saturated fatty acid are bad like in butter for example
- try to eat more omega 3 than 6, or 1:1, that is very hard to achieve though, good source of lots of omega 3 is linseed oil. omega 3 has an anti-inflammation effect where omeag 6 triggers inflammations
- you should try to eat at least 10g of ALA omega 3 per day
- avoid any oil with high amounts of omega 6 like sunflower oil for example
- there is a controversy debate about how healthy or not healthy coconut fat is because it is mostly saturated fatty acid, some studies say it is healthy others not
One thing that is being left out here are Omega fats. You mentioned hemp seed oil, which contains Omega 3s and ALA, which are essential and can only otherwise be found only in mercury-laden seafood. You have to weigh the pros and cons. I personally eat mostly avocado and coconut oils, but I would choose a plant-based oil over animal fats any day.