You don’t need a medical degree if you can do this
The latest “health” craze is all about condemning “seed oils”. I’m a guy with a family history of heart disease, so I pay attention to doctors’ dietary recommendations, and I never heard anything about “seed oils” until recently, and the complaints were always coming out of the mouths of fools.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new health secretary, has said Americans are being “unknowingly poisoned” by seed oils and has called for fast-food restaurants to return to using beef tallow, or rendered animal fat, in their fryers instead.
Recommendations from RFK jr tend to make me run in the opposite direction, but apparently there are a lot of gullible Americans who readily adopt any claim made by an anti-scientist. And then every corporation stampedes to follow the money.
In response to consumer concerns, some food-makers have stripped seed oils from their products. Restaurants like the salad chain Sweetgreen have removed them from their menus. Many Americans say they now avoid seed oils, according to a recent survey from the International Food Information Council, an industry trade group.
The seed oil discussion has exasperated nutrition scientists, who say decades of research confirms the health benefits of consuming such oils, especially in place of alternatives such as butter or lard.
“I don’t know where it came from that seed oils are bad,” said Martha Belury, an Ohio State University food science professor.
I know! I know! It comes from wellness influencers
. All you need is a tiktok channel and a lot of unfounded confidence, and you too can promote weird random ideas under the guise of making people “well”. You don’t need a medical degree! You don’t even need to be a college graduate! Wellness
isn’t a real scientific/medical discipline — it’s just a buzzword that has no regulatory oversight or any basis in empirical data. We all want to be well, but to have any authority in medicine requires years of training and constant updating from real sources.
I found something called Your Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Successful Health and Wellness Influencer. It’s revealing. The way to become a wellness influencer
is a) find something you’re passionate about, b) connect with a community of wellness influencers
, and c) land a brand deal. That last one is obviously the most important. Nowhere does it say you should study medicine or nutrition, or read scientific studies, or even be capable of understanding scientific studies. Just promote whatever random bias is floating around in your head!
It also helps to be young and slender and capable of doing yoga poses. Here’s a whole page of wellness
photos you can use to build a page promoting your brand. Take a look and let me know if there’s anything illustrating knowledge or expertise; there is a common theme, and that’s not it.
In that article dismissing the seed oil obsession, you instead find studies and numbers.
Belury, who has studied fatty acids for three decades, says that claim is based on an oversimplification and misunderstanding of the science. Studies have shown that increased intake of linoleic acid, the most common omega-6, does not significantly affect concentrations of inflammatory markers in the blood, she said.
“Scientists who study omega-6 and omega-3 think we need both,” Belury said. “Seed oils do not increase acute or chronic inflammation markers.”
In addition, research from the American Heart Association and others has consistently shown that plant-based oils reduce so-called bad cholesterol, lowering the risk of heart disease and stroke, especially compared with sources high in saturated fat.
That’s found in new research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital scientists as well. A study of more than 200,000 adults over more than 30 years released Thursday found that people who ate the highest amounts of butter had a 15% higher risk of dying than those who ate the least. People who ate the most plant-based oils — including seed oils — had a 16% lower risk than those who ate the least.
Dr. Daniel Wang, who led the research, said new modeling data suggests that swapping less than a tablespoon a day of butter for equal calories of plant-based oils could lower premature deaths from cancer and overall mortality by 17%. Such a small daily change could result in “a substantial benefit,” Wang said.
Gosh. Belury and Wang are never going to be rich, famous, and popular at that rate. Americans don’t want to be told about data, they want to see a glossy image of sexy people sipping a drink with an umbrella in it while sitting on a beach in Costa Rica. That’s wellness
, not a bunch of studies showing what’s actually effective in reducing mortality.
I think I’ll just listen to boring doctors in Minnesota who tell me to eat less red meat and consume more olive oil and salmon. It seems to be working; most of my ancestors seem to have died in their 50s, and I’ve made it to almost 70, and I haven’t made any major sacrifices in my lifestyle. A Mediterranean diet is delicious and good for you.
Unfortunately, I don’t look like a 20-something model and I don’t have a wellness
supplement to sell.
But wait – some plant oils are considered good, and there is substantial researched verification of their health benefits. Olive oil, for example. They made up an out for that (from the top link):
Also, cholesterol is mentioned only once, briefly.
I know that some people have bad reactions to canola oil, but I have never noticed any ill effects myself. The rapeseed plant contains significant amounts of the toxic erucic acid, but canola has been bred to contain lower levels of that. I guess I’m not sensitive to it. But I know that if I were cooking everything in lard, my cholesterol levels would be through the roof, so despite the delicious flavor of lard cooking, I think I’ll avoid that. And sesame oil is delicious in a stir fry too.
The major reward for getting very old is that you can make up whatever BS you want, and claim it is the reason for your successful aging.
106-year-old woman, who has lived through two World Wars, claims chocolates and partying is the secret to her long life
@2 Artor
Sesame oil has a fairly low vapor point, so it evaporates during cooking. It makes your kitchen smell wonderful. I put in a little bit when I bake chocolate chip cookies.
So.. you’re saying we shouldn’t take health advice from a guy who eats roadkill?
My own theory is that the unhealth gurus who started the whole canola oil craze, believing or at least claiming this was some new, artificial, genetically modified foodstuff got told that canola of course is simple rapeseed oil. As it’s quite impossible for them to admit their mistake or simply shut up about it, they had to double down, and so not only is canola oil poisonous, so is EVERY SEED OIL!
Had some salad with linseed and pumpkin seed oil earlier. Very tasty and somehow I’m still alive.
So now the snake-oil grifters are saying animal fat is more healthy than seed oils? This is getting VERY close to flat-earth levels of denialism.
Just a wild guess here, but is there any chance the meat / dairy industry might have something to do with it?
@ 9
That and the how “health” scam industry has been taking over by proud “carnivore” MAGA chuckleheads instead of the vegan/organic/clean food hippie loons of the past.
Whoops! That last was a response to 8.
There are any number of studies that show that eating high levels of animal fat is associated with an increased risk of heart disease.
Higher cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol levels are known risk factors for heart disease.
Finland used to have an unhealthy diet and high rates of heart disease. The public health agencies decided to do something about it by advocating for lower levels of animal fats and higher levels of fruits and vegetables. It worked.
” Coronary heart disease mortality has declined in Finland by 55% among men and 68% among women between 1972 and 1992. ”
@11 raven
Whom are you going to believe, the NIH or a roadkill brainworm nepo-baby?
Fortunately, now you no longer have to choose‽‽‽
Just a wild guess here, but is there any chance the meat / dairy industry might have something to do with it?
That, plus Republican grifters now have a new grift that capitalizes on their own base’s hatred of all them newfangled healthy diet trends. This one is aimed at all those rock-ribbed red-blooded Americans who always thought (or at least wanted us to think) that all this vegetarian stuff was emasculating American men and turning us all into gay effeminate soy-boys.
It’s pointless to even use such a general term like “seed oil” when discussing health. It’s more about the fatty acids.
Scroll down to chart that shows the relative proportions of fatty acids in just a few plant sources (both engineered and ‘natural’):
https://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i11/Replacing-Trans-Fat.html
When I saw the photo at the top, with its caption, and the mention of RFK jr., I first assumed the caption was a reference to his alleged personal fitness. That is, him being remarkably well-muscled, especially for someone his age. Some ignoramuses on social media have seriously argued that it indicates his better understanding of all kinds of health-related thingies, compared to your average pudgy senior public health expert. I think his tan also factors in it – both extreme muscle buildup in men and tan in white people are commonly, mistakenly perceived as signs of good health. This impression is also helped by the fact that he still has hair, and keeps it well-styled, and generally has the genes and the cosmetic regime to make him look kind of conventionally attractive.
Of course, while he may commit a full day job’s worth of effort in looking healthy, by the most facile standards of Western wellness culture, his personal image cannot match that of much younger professional models.
Unlike the chocolates and partying anecdote, I’ve been treating what was high cholesterol and high blood pressure with a healthy diet for about 15 years, and following through with regular checkups (I’ve got a major one coming up next week, in fact), and have empirical data that shows that it works, in my case.
I also watched my father slowly die, one heart attack at a time, while his blood pressure, his cholesterol, and his diabetes soared out of control, until his body finally stopped functioning.
I think the doctors make a good case for a better diet.
One basic requirement of wellness influencing is indeed to invent or adopt some weird niche idea, or at least pretend that some fairly popular fad is a groundbreaking new idea. That way you can hope to convince people that your “special knowledge” is correct and valuable. It inherently gravitates toward pseudoscience and religion.
However, it’s easier to get people to believe your ideas if it’s something people would like to believe anyway, rather than just random weirdness. Here, we get to:
That’s definitely part of it, and basically the point I made in my previous comment. But I think a lot of people also want to enjoy the taste of butter, beef and beef fat. See also the proliferation of various fad diets that basically boil down to promoting the idea of eating mostly meat, or animal produce in general.
A healthy diet does not include anything on a typical fast food menu. I suspect the reason for advocating specifically about using lard in the deep fryers is because a certain asshole subsists on McDonalds fast food.
I agree that using lard results in tastier fries, and butter gives better results when making pastry, but neither of those should be considered healthy food choices.
On the other hand, I encourage RFK and ilk to go ahead and consume entire sticks of butter, fries, and as much fast food as they want.
Steak ‘n Shake is going all in with this bullshit, basically trying to woo as many fashies as possible.
https://www.newsweek.com/steak-n-shake-beef-tallow-fries-five-states-robert-f-kennedy-jr-2035884
The origin of the ‘seed oils are bad for you’ is from an old study where the plant oils were provided as margarine. As was common in those days, the margarine was high in trans fats, and thus indeed was unhealthy. All newer studies, using oils with no trans fats, show most plant oils to be better than most animal-based fats. The exceptions to the former are palm and coconut oils, which are saturated fats (but the ‘nuts’ love them, because they are ‘fruit oils’), and the exceptions to the latter are fish oils, especially from wild-caught, cold-water fish, which are beneficial, and cheese (and similar non-butter dairy fats) which tend to be neutral (though back in the day cheese used to raise my own cholesterol levels). The reason butter is an exception to the exception is that the churning process destroys the fat globules that normally contain the fat in milk. When the fat is contained in globules it digests slower and thus doesn’t flood the system all at once.
My own oils uses: For salads, hummus, and other cold dishes, as well as for quick stir fries: olive oil. For longer or high temperature cooking/frying and for most baking: canola oil. For flavoring stir fries: a dash of peanut oil. For pie crusts: coconut oil (I make about 3 pies a year, so I don’t think this matters much)
The right wingnut fascists who now run the USA seem to live in a magical world.
A magical world they created by…magical thinking.
.1. Vaccines are harmful and the diseases they prevent are better.
This contradicts several millennia of science and medicine.
.2. The current delusion that animal fats and cholesterol are good and plant nutrients are bad.
Which contradicts decades of science and medicine.
.3. Flouride in our drinking water is poisonous.
Despite the fact that our water has been flouridated for nearly a century based on…science and medicine.
.4. Supply side economics.
Cutting taxes leads to balanced budgets by increasing tax revenue.
Which is tried often and never works.
.5. Tariffs will increase revenues without also increasing prices and causing inflation.
Which ignores several centuries of empirical knowledge that they are harmful and the reasons why the world largely got rid of them.
.6. We can make the IRS more efficient by cutting half their staff.
All this will do is lower tax revenue since the IRS is already short staffed.
.7. Cuddling up with our enemies while making sure our friends fear and hate us will make American great again.
No, all it does is make America into a mindless monster that the world has to watch out for and deal with.
.8. We can fix our school systems by cutting their budgets by 11%, the portion from the Department of Education.
.8. I’m sure I’m missing some more examples of right wingnut magical thinking here.
Then again, it is magical thinking all the way down anyway.
One basic requirement of wellness influencing is indeed to invent or adopt some weird niche idea…
Which can then lead to a bunch of clickbait ads: “Doctors stunned!” “Doctors can’t explain it but this food cures everything!” “The new|ancient medicine doctors don’t want you to know!” “The new old wives’ cure that’s turning medicine upside-down!” “Eat this every day! (It’s genius!)”
Autobot: I notice Newsweek is heavy with the both-sides-ism there…
It will also lead to fewer people at the highest income brackets being audited while increasing it for people at the lower end.
@8: I think they might literally start pushing snake oils any day now…
I doubt it’s new to anyone here, but I shall share Dara O’ Briain’s sketch anyways, because every time I hear the phrase “wellness” I mentally replace it with “toothiologist”…
https://youtu.be/YKZN-hBTBUE?si=AixKc49O821-Or_H&t=662
Yeah, I’ve heard of that bullshit.
My favourite claim is that “you shouldn’t eat rapeseed oil because it was actually invented for motor cars”. I’m amazed that somebody invented motor oil before motors, but apparently that’s possible.
Now, I’m your fat chocoholic with high blood pressure (though my sister who literally weighs half of me also has high blood pressure), but since we’re mostly eating a plant based diet, my cholesterol and also long term diabetes markers are exemplary.
Thanks to Trump and Musk, our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is now over with.
The stock markets have been dropping for weeks now.
Today the Dow was down 900 points and the Nasdaq was down 4%.
This vaporized $1.5 trillion in stock market values. A lot for one day.
My 401(K) was screaming. Again.
It died under the George Bush Great Recession and was resurrected by Obama.
Mmm, flexible … who is she?
Not that I’m interested in getting health advice from her. Now, if she was 75 and still able to do that, then I might be interested in her health advice. :)
[Stock image, BB. Easy enough to search.]
Also, There is no reason why an excellent nutritionist can’t be that flexible or that age.
—
Basically, you’ve addressed the image to the topic, not the topic.
FWIW, another big ‘wellness’ thingy is ‘detoxing’.
(Kidneys, liver, sweat glands, they need clean inputs, donchano)
The photo is a gymnast/tumbling handstand called double stag/reverse stag. It requires core strength and a very flexible lower back.
At my bookstore there is a pretty large section called Diets and Nutrition. In that section you can find books advocating an “alkaline diet”. You can also find books promoting an “apple cider vinegar diet”.
@32, in their minds, that’s not even a conflict. You see, consuming acids (such as apple cider vinegar, or lots of lemon juice) provokes your body to “counter” with an alkaline response to keep your pH stable. See? They have excuses for everything.
Another actual article on dietary oils and fats: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2831265
raven@22:
On fluoridation in particular, the history of it really undercuts the whole RFKjr et al conspiracy theory.
Fluoridation happens naturally in many places because of the rocks the groundwater flows through. (In fact there are places where fluorides have to be removed from the water because there’s too much naturally.)
The reason why artificial fluoridation started happening was that it was noticed that people living in areas where the well water had a high degree of natural fluoridation generally had much better teeth.
In other words, fluoridation is an example of taking something that the natural world had already demonstrated worked, and making better use of it by fixing the dosage a bit better. Aren’t these people all about the natural remedies? Fluorides are natural. Many of them are crystals, even!
Giliell @ 27
Yeah, that’s crazy. Given that “canola oil” is made from a hybrid bred to be low in erucic acid, it was basically the other way around.
Vegetable oils that were not well suited for consumption were tried for other purposes.
For example Castor oil was famous as “Castrol R”. It’s an excellent lubricant but doesn’t last long in the high temperatures of an engine. For a time it was popular for use in racing engines because those are rebuilt frequently anyway.