In September 2021, I came down with a severe flu-like illness. During that time, I started researching my diet to see if it was the cause. I ended up down the rabbit hole of Seed Oils, more popularly called vegetable oils, which include canola, soybean, corn, safflower, and sunflower oil. I had always thought that it was only trans-fats that were dangerous, not the poly-unsaturated fats in seed oils that experts proclaim are “healthy” for the heart. I was wrong. I have come to the conclusion that seed oils are toxic and should not be consumed by human beings. I have since embarked on a quest to eliminate them from my diet.
You may be reluctant to examine the boring scientific evidence for why seed oils are toxic, but I promise that you won’t need a PhD. Simply watch this video on how canola oil is made, produced by the same industry that wants you to consume more of it. By granting a film crew access to their factory, they actually thought this video would impress you with their product.
You just saw an industrial process to transform waste into “food” using noxious chemicals and high heat. If you watched this video and see nothing wrong with canola oil and how it is heavily processed from a disgusting brown sludge, there is no amount of science I can present to you that will convince you to stop eating industrial waste. This process uses bleach, lye, and hexane to transform an inedible product into a low-grade toxin that may not kill you immediately, but which causes long-term health problems. Soybean oil and all other seed oils must be processed in the same industrial manner because of the tiny amount of oil encapsulated in each tough little seed. Only a factory method using volatile chemicals is able to extract enough of that oil to make it lucrative for the extractor. Compare that to how extra virgin olive oil is naturally made:
Before seed oils came onto the scene, heart attacks were unheard of: cardiologists in the early 20th century never saw them, and any sudden heart failure leading to death was due to a congenital defect. Cancer was rare and so was obesity. Then the captains of industry found out that they could dump their waste onto the food supply through the magic of industrial chemistry—similar to how they dumped fluoride in the water supply—by offering payola to medical associations for a stamp of approval. They also dangled the prospect of future high-paying jobs to government workers as long as they approve their toxins as food. This video summarizes how we’ve been duped in the name of profits.
There are two main problems with seed oils. First, they rapidly oxidize, whether in the bottle or while cooking. They break down into primary oxidation products like peroxides, and dienes, and also secondary oxidation products of carbonyls, aldehydes, trienes, and isoprostanes. These byproducts are toxic and directly damage the body. The olive oil you buy in a store comes in a dark bottle to block out UV light and prevent oxidation. Vegetable oil, on the other hand, comes in a clear bottle because it’s already oxidized, so there is no use to spend an extra penny per bottle to prevent a process that degrades the product.
Second, seed oils that enter the body cause oxidation themselves, an indirect form of poisoning. Their unsaturated chemical composition allows them to easily react with proteins, organic molecules, and cell membranes to impair biological functioning and cause oxidative stress which leads to inflammation. This causes cellular damage that, over the long term, is suspected in heart disease, obesity, cancer, diabetes, blood clotting, malnourishment, thyroid dysfunction, and immunity defects. It turns out that polyunsaturated fat, which is heralded as heart-healthy, is most dangerous for the heart because of how readily it causes inflammation. (See the reading list below and embedded videos for evidence of all claims in this article.)
I suspect that many of the chronic health problems Americans face today, and which the pharmaceutical industry is only too happy to treat with expensive medicines, are caused by the consumption of vegetable oils, moreso than a sedentary lifestyle. If you have more time, and want the details on specifically why vegetable oils are so bad for the human body, I recommend this video:
Even though I was a scientist for many years, I don’t have the time or patience to wade through all the literature determining whether each food I may eat is toxic or not, so I’ve implemented a shortcut. Did the food exist before 1900? Because the 20th century was a disaster for the human race, my heuristic makes the assumption that whatever existed before 1900 was better than what came after. I’m taking quite a gamble because most processed and refined foods, including pumpkin spice soy lattes, doughnuts, Cheetos, chicken nuggets, ranch dressing, and Hot Pockets are off-limits to me since they did not exist before 1900. If the food you’re about to eat is unrecognizable to someone who lived at that time, or would not be considered food by them, we should not eat it, for we have the same body and digestive system as those men and women who knew how to live in a natural, traditional way. Unfortunately many people eat a modern diet composed entirely of Frankenfoods, and I would bet those people suffer from needless illness, or at least soon will.
When it comes to fats, there are only a few that pass the 1900 test: olive oil, butter, ghee, pork lard, coconut oil (at least in Asia), and beef tallow. All are heavily saturated. Wait, aren’t saturated fats bad for you? I’ve been told by the American Heart Association, which is in the pocket of the seed oil industry from a relationship that started way back in 1948, that I need to only consume poly-unsaturated industrial sludge (doctors actually recommend you eat canola oil!). Well, you were lied to. Saturated fat is good for you. It has sustained humans for generations without the deaths from cancer and heart disease that we have now. First, it doesn’t break down into toxic byproducts in the body like polyunsaturated fat, and second, it raises your cholesterol. Wait, isn’t cholesterol bad for you? No, that’s another lie. Cholesterol is also good for you. It is required by your body, composes much of your brain, and is actually an antioxidant that helps with immune function.
Our diets have been contaminated by greedy businessmen and corrupt government health authorities. Instead of eating vegetables and refined carbohydrates, we should be focusing on animal fats and other animal products (assuming it’s not an Orthodox fasting day), which are way more nutrient-dense than vegetables. Consider that a serving of beef liver has way more vitamins and minerals than a serving of the healthiest vegetable. Many of us, including myself, have wasted time eating a colorful variety of salads and health food products when really we should’ve just been eating eggs and meat slathered with butter, like most of our ancestors, while treating vegetables more as a side dish that should also be slathered with butter.
It’s still hard for me to quit bread (my ancestors were from the Middle East, after all), but now when I compose I meal, I ask myself how I can maximize the amount of animal fats and cholesterol without ruining the overall flavor balance. In my oatmeal, I use milk, butter, and almond butter. It keeps me full for hours. For lunch I may make an omelet with cheese and butter. I put more thought into the fat I’m going to use for meals or in my baking. Turns out that it’s practical: fat makes me full for longer, so I spend fewer hours in a day in hunger or thinking about food.
I know that one day I will die. No matter how healthy I eat today, the cause of my death will still be what kills most people in old age: cancer, heart disease, stroke, dementia, or organ failure (often lungs). I am not improving my diet to live longer or escape from suffering. Instead, I simply desire to not eat sludge and poison. I only want to eat food, but most of what passes today as food is not food. Vegetable oil is not food, no matter how much they bleach it and add artificial yellow coloring, and most of the packaged junk in the supermarket is not food. God created me in His image and likeness to worship Him to the best of my ability. Eating normal food that I can properly digest helps me in that aim. I only want to eat the fruits of the earth that my ancestors ate, not industrial sludge. If I eat a clean diet and still get sick, that’s okay, because in this body I am mortal, but to eat vegetable oils and other waste products is to call food what is not food, and that is a lie, a trick of modernity, perhaps derived from Satan himself.
It’s very easy to get neurotic about food. “It has a drop of soybean oil, so I can’t eat it!” “This birthday cake my friends bought for me has bleached flour, which is bad!” You can take the truth about food and go overboard, allowing it to make you more anxious and fearful than if you just ate junk every day and got sick from it. My practice is to eat as clean as I can when I prepare my own meals. Some of the products I eat still have some vegetable oil (e.g., mixed nuts) and I use modern expeller-pressed avocado oil in my baked goods. When I am invited to other people’s homes, I know I’m probably getting a lot of soy. That’s okay. If I eat clean for most of the week, I can handle an occasional unclean meal. I don’t want my decision to eat real food to separate me from other people, especially Christians, in the name of physical health. My desire to eat real food is more a natural desire to eat real food, because it is only a matter of time until I die anyway. There is no point coddling a corpse, of which I will soon be.
From my recent education of food, I have come to an alarming conclusion: I think they’re trying to kill us. The vast majority of packaged food in the supermarket contains seed oils and other ingredients that human beings should not consume, but it’s extremely profitable to the producers so they don’t mind putting soy in just about everything. Even worse, when you go out to a chain restaurant, all you’re getting is soy and other junk (look at the nutritional information section of your favorite restaurant’s website if you don’t believe me). They don’t care about what we eat as long as they make more money, and those at the FDA will approve anything as “food” because they want to get a higher-paying job at the food companies they’re supposed to regulate.
Don’t trust what they tell you to eat—simply look in the past, at the foods that were available to your ancestors, and use that to construct a diet to the best of your ability without becoming anxious or neurotic. Food should be a way to nourish our slowly decaying bodies and experience fellowship with others. Anything beyond that and we’ve gone too far.
To further study this issue, here are the sources I recommend:
- Oxidation of food grade oils
- Free Radicals: Definition, Causes, Antioxidants, and Cancer
- Soybean oil linked to metabolic and neurological changes in mice
- How Industrial Seed Oils Are Making Us Sick
- Unsaturated Vegetable Oils: Toxic
- The Big Fat Surprise: Toxic Heated Oils
- Why Saturated Fat is GOOD for you
- Benefits of saturated fat
- Benefits of cholesterol
- Seed oils cause Cancer, Heart Disease, Obesity and Diabetes
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