6 ms·

Vegetable oil associated with greater risk of CVD than animal fat

33 points by hirundo 4y ago

tagami 4y ago
"Gingili" - specifically sesame oil.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
This is sad in regards to McDonald’s fries, which used to be good until ‘health’ activists got involved: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Sokolof https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Sokolof
- 7thaccount 4y ago
  They are basically inedible now. I won't buy them under any circumstances.
  - oc852 4y ago
    McDonald's fries in Asia actually taste pretty good. The ones in the states and Europe taste awful.
    - DiabloD3 4y ago
      As far as I know, they still use beef tallow for the Asia ones, which were the original actually healthy fries (well, as far as fries can be, anyways) sold by McDs in the states before Big Veg Oil screwed over the food industry.
biggoodwolf 4y ago
Nobody could have seen this!111 How did the French paradox go?
lock-the-spock 4y ago
Maybe I missed that part but i don't see how they establish which is the cause and which is the effect. People do switch to healthier or perceiver-to-be-healthier alternatives once they get sick, so it might well be that those with problems switched to vegetable fat. (People in the hospital die more often than those not hospitalised - ergo hospitals kill people!) And of course the usual link to wider socioeconomic status needs a bit more exploring.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  > People do switch to healthier or perceiver-to-be-healthier alternatives once they get sick I always forget this part, and you're right – it's critical, and often used by industry interests to help indicate healthier options are in fact less healthy. It can be hard to catch sometimes, and before I knew how to read these studies, I was tricked by it very, very often. We also know in the case of the disease they're concerned about here, that without radical dietary changes (i.e. eating plant fats OR animal fats won't save you here) then the damages you've likely been exposing yourself to for decades are probably going to kill you soon, anyway. Arterial plaque doesn't vanish when you start frying eggs in canola instead of pork fat. Another thing to consider here is: what do elderly Chinese consider to be healthy? Are the ones switching to animal fats doing that because it's culturally perceived as healthier? Or are they more like North Americans, thinking canola is the heart-healthy oil? It's hard to tell, not being around the age of 65 and living in China. I do appreciate that they accounted for diet composition to a degree, though it's self-reported and again, not reliable particularly among people trying to change old habits.
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  It shouldn't be surprising that lard is healthier than vegetable oil. Think about things like cotton-seed oil, rapeseed oil and canola oil. These things are imposible to consume without industrial processing. Meat has always been a staple in the human diet. It's the hunt in hunting and gathering: the gathering mainly beeing fruit, but admittedly also seeds. but of course the oil obtained in seeds never reached the amount we have now. While that's not conlclusive in itself there has actualy been a lot of research on polyunsaturated fatty acids lately with worrying results. One could reasonably phrase the question this way: what evidence is there that polyunsaturated fatty acids are healthy? Also, it's unreasonable to say that in a study of 15,000 people, the cause of those who used vegetable oil were those with ASCVD and therefore chose to cook with it. In any event, this possibilty is ruled out: >Based on 15,242 Chinese elderly people over 65 years old who had long-term adherence to dietary habits and types of edible oils,[...] >And of course the usual link to wider socioeconomic status needs a bit more exploring. This is accounted for in the article. In fact "evaluation of other variables" makes up the entire alaysis.
steve_adams_86 4y ago
I'm seeing that they don't appear to control or account for (nor could they, really) for how much plant or animal fat was used. They're also not indicating how much of the vegetable oils are saturated fats, though they do claim it's mostly rapeseed. Plant-based fats have a broad spectrum of properties though, and it seems questionable to lump them together. Many people have the notion that vegetable oils are healthier than animal fats as well (that's not generally true from what I can tell, but people believe what they will), so they might be likely to use more of it than people who might believe animal fats should be moderated. It's hard to tell because I'm working from popular western ideas around nutrition, and this is data from China. I'm not sure if people there think animal fat should be moderated or that plant fats are healthier – it could be the opposite, or barely a consideration at all. Another factor could simply be cost. Maybe people who use plant oils use more because it's cheaper, or vice versa. I think the analysis should ultimately reflect in its conclusion that more research is required because the data isn't sufficient to draw meaningful conclusions. I also find this concerning: "Our study found that cooking with lard/other animal fat oil is more beneficial to cardiovascular health in older Chinese." On balance, cooking with refined oils is not shown to be beneficial to any otherwise-healthy population; there is no advantage to cooking with lard, and rather, there is an advantage to replacing those calories with sources of higher quality nutrition in general. While plant vs animal fat is indeed controversial, it is not controversial that cooking with (especially frying, baking, broiling, grilling) high fat foods is not very good for people. Though the analysis indicates that animal fats may confer lower risk, it's fairly clear that high refined-fat diets generally do confer higher risk than diets with lower fat and/or fats from whole foods. It seems we shouldn't worry about which fat to cook with so much as how to cook with less refined fats in general. If we consume reasonable amounts of fat (that is, far less than we tend to on average), the question of which type to cook with becomes far less pressing and relevant. I'm not saying "never eat saturated fat" or "your high-fat cuts of meat are killing you"; I'm specifically saying that through many years of looking at this kind of data, I've never once seen anything indicating that cooking with refined oils is a good idea, ever. Get it from whole foods first, whether it's a plant or an animal, and you'll fare better (according to heaps of the best quality studies we have, ranging back a half-century). So, that's why I'm not crazy about this analysis. Apologies if I missed something. I was reading it on my phone, and I'd gladly be corrected. I don't want to put down a good analysis because my eyeballs aren't working.
EVOOGOD 4y ago
[dead]
- tsol 4y ago
  Interesting. This is a question I've been curious about before. How does it work for chains? Does each location need to be scouted out individually, or can you determine multiple locations at once?
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  >Copyright © Extra Virgin Ventures LOL, great naming!
n65463f23_4 4y ago
i thought the idea that seed oils are bad is an alt right conspiracy?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tsol 4y ago
  I don't know what it's associated with, but I see it randomly on all communities. It doesn't seem to be specifically a alt right thing
pvaldes 4y ago
Just for the record, CVD = cardiovascular disease Maybe because pesticides are not healthy. A control between industrial and ecological oil could point to interesting results.
adrian_b 4y ago
The title is misleading for 2 reasons. First, most vegetable oils belong to one of two groups that have very different health properties: vegetable oils where the dominant fatty acid is linoleic acid and vegetable oils where the dominant fatty acid is oleic acid. Second, there are two ways of using a vegetable oil, with very different health implications. The vegetable oil can be added to food after cooking, when the food will no longer be heated to high temperatures, or the vegetable oil can be used during cooking, for frying and similar procedures. This research study has compared sesame oil, where the dominant fatty acid is linoleic acid, with lard. It is not very clear how the oil and the lard were used, but it seems that they were used mostly for frying and similar high temperature procedures. Between the 2 kinds of vegetable oils, the healthier are those where oleic acid is the dominant fatty acid. Moreover, for any vegetable oil, the healthy way to use it is to only add it after cooking, so that it will never be exposed to high temperatures. The resistance of fat to high temperatures increases with the proportion of saturated or almost saturated fatty acids, so it is maximum for animal fats like lard or butter, lower for high-oleic vegetable oils and it is minimum for the oils where the dominant fatty acid is linoleic acid. Depending on the temperature and the time of exposure to that temperature, any kind of fat will be degraded partially, more or less, depending on its heat resistance. So for frying, there is no doubt that the healthiest is to use lard or butter, less healthy is to use high-oleic sunflower oil or olive oil or avocado oil, and the least healthy is to use classic sunflower oil, corn oil, soy oil or sesame oil, like in this study. So there is no surprise about the results, they are exactly as expected and well known. The various kinds of fat must be used for appropriate purposes. When misusing them, any kind of fat may be unhealthy.
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  >less healthy is to use high-oleic sunflower oil or olive oil or avocado oil, and the least healthy is to use classic sunflower oil, corn oil, soy oil or sesame oil, like in this study. Most vegetable oils are linoleic. It is only recently that high oelic cooking oil has become a thing. I'm not aware of how prevelant it is in china. And of course olives and avocados are not vegetables. The study actually represents what vegetable oil is pretty well. The data go back to when HO vegetable oils were not a thing, and I speculate they are still not a thing in china, though I may be wrong. The title is still a bit misleading given that the study is more specific than the conclusion but I think you are overstating the dgree to which that is the case.

33 points by hirundo 4y ago

"Gingili" - specifically sesame oil.

This is sad in regards to McDonald’s fries, which used to be good until ‘health’ activists got involved: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Sokolof https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Sokolof

7thaccount 4y ago
They are basically inedible now. I won't buy them under any circumstances.
- oc852 4y ago
  McDonald's fries in Asia actually taste pretty good. The ones in the states and Europe taste awful.
  - DiabloD3 4y ago
    As far as I know, they still use beef tallow for the Asia ones, which were the original actually healthy fries (well, as far as fries can be, anyways) sold by McDs in the states before Big Veg Oil screwed over the food industry.

biggoodwolf 4y ago

Nobody could have seen this!111 How did the French paradox go?

lock-the-spock 4y ago

Maybe I missed that part but i don't see how they establish which is the cause and which is the effect. People do switch to healthier or perceiver-to-be-healthier alternatives once they get sick, so it might well be that those with problems switched to vegetable fat. (People in the hospital die more often than those not hospitalised - ergo hospitals kill people!) And of course the usual link to wider socioeconomic status needs a bit more exploring.

steve_adams_86 4y ago
> People do switch to healthier or perceiver-to-be-healthier alternatives once they get sick I always forget this part, and you're right – it's critical, and often used by industry interests to help indicate healthier options are in fact less healthy. It can be hard to catch sometimes, and before I knew how to read these studies, I was tricked by it very, very often. We also know in the case of the disease they're concerned about here, that without radical dietary changes (i.e. eating plant fats OR animal fats won't save you here) then the damages you've likely been exposing yourself to for decades are probably going to kill you soon, anyway. Arterial plaque doesn't vanish when you start frying eggs in canola instead of pork fat. Another thing to consider here is: what do elderly Chinese consider to be healthy? Are the ones switching to animal fats doing that because it's culturally perceived as healthier? Or are they more like North Americans, thinking canola is the heart-healthy oil? It's hard to tell, not being around the age of 65 and living in China. I do appreciate that they accounted for diet composition to a degree, though it's self-reported and again, not reliable particularly among people trying to change old habits.
Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
It shouldn't be surprising that lard is healthier than vegetable oil. Think about things like cotton-seed oil, rapeseed oil and canola oil. These things are imposible to consume without industrial processing. Meat has always been a staple in the human diet. It's the hunt in hunting and gathering: the gathering mainly beeing fruit, but admittedly also seeds. but of course the oil obtained in seeds never reached the amount we have now. While that's not conlclusive in itself there has actualy been a lot of research on polyunsaturated fatty acids lately with worrying results. One could reasonably phrase the question this way: what evidence is there that polyunsaturated fatty acids are healthy? Also, it's unreasonable to say that in a study of 15,000 people, the cause of those who used vegetable oil were those with ASCVD and therefore chose to cook with it. In any event, this possibilty is ruled out: >Based on 15,242 Chinese elderly people over 65 years old who had long-term adherence to dietary habits and types of edible oils,[...] >And of course the usual link to wider socioeconomic status needs a bit more exploring. This is accounted for in the article. In fact "evaluation of other variables" makes up the entire alaysis.

steve_adams_86 4y ago

I'm seeing that they don't appear to control or account for (nor could they, really) for how much plant or animal fat was used. They're also not indicating how much of the vegetable oils are saturated fats, though they do claim it's mostly rapeseed. Plant-based fats have a broad spectrum of properties though, and it seems questionable to lump them together. Many people have the notion that vegetable oils are healthier than animal fats as well (that's not generally true from what I can tell, but people believe what they will), so they might be likely to use more of it than people who might believe animal fats should be moderated. It's hard to tell because I'm working from popular western ideas around nutrition, and this is data from China. I'm not sure if people there think animal fat should be moderated or that plant fats are healthier – it could be the opposite, or barely a consideration at all. Another factor could simply be cost. Maybe people who use plant oils use more because it's cheaper, or vice versa. I think the analysis should ultimately reflect in its conclusion that more research is required because the data isn't sufficient to draw meaningful conclusions. I also find this concerning: "Our study found that cooking with lard/other animal fat oil is more beneficial to cardiovascular health in older Chinese." On balance, cooking with refined oils is not shown to be beneficial to any otherwise-healthy population; there is no advantage to cooking with lard, and rather, there is an advantage to replacing those calories with sources of higher quality nutrition in general. While plant vs animal fat is indeed controversial, it is not controversial that cooking with (especially frying, baking, broiling, grilling) high fat foods is not very good for people. Though the analysis indicates that animal fats may confer lower risk, it's fairly clear that high refined-fat diets generally do confer higher risk than diets with lower fat and/or fats from whole foods. It seems we shouldn't worry about which fat to cook with so much as how to cook with less refined fats in general. If we consume reasonable amounts of fat (that is, far less than we tend to on average), the question of which type to cook with becomes far less pressing and relevant. I'm not saying "never eat saturated fat" or "your high-fat cuts of meat are killing you"; I'm specifically saying that through many years of looking at this kind of data, I've never once seen anything indicating that cooking with refined oils is a good idea, ever. Get it from whole foods first, whether it's a plant or an animal, and you'll fare better (according to heaps of the best quality studies we have, ranging back a half-century). So, that's why I'm not crazy about this analysis. Apologies if I missed something. I was reading it on my phone, and I'd gladly be corrected. I don't want to put down a good analysis because my eyeballs aren't working.

EVOOGOD 4y ago

[dead]

tsol 4y ago
Interesting. This is a question I've been curious about before. How does it work for chains? Does each location need to be scouted out individually, or can you determine multiple locations at once?

n65463f23_4 4y ago

i thought the idea that seed oils are bad is an alt right conspiracy?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tsol 4y ago
I don't know what it's associated with, but I see it randomly on all communities. It doesn't seem to be specifically a alt right thing

pvaldes 4y ago

Just for the record, CVD = cardiovascular disease Maybe because pesticides are not healthy. A control between industrial and ecological oil could point to interesting results.

adrian_b 4y ago

The title is misleading for 2 reasons. First, most vegetable oils belong to one of two groups that have very different health properties: vegetable oils where the dominant fatty acid is linoleic acid and vegetable oils where the dominant fatty acid is oleic acid. Second, there are two ways of using a vegetable oil, with very different health implications. The vegetable oil can be added to food after cooking, when the food will no longer be heated to high temperatures, or the vegetable oil can be used during cooking, for frying and similar procedures. This research study has compared sesame oil, where the dominant fatty acid is linoleic acid, with lard. It is not very clear how the oil and the lard were used, but it seems that they were used mostly for frying and similar high temperature procedures. Between the 2 kinds of vegetable oils, the healthier are those where oleic acid is the dominant fatty acid. Moreover, for any vegetable oil, the healthy way to use it is to only add it after cooking, so that it will never be exposed to high temperatures. The resistance of fat to high temperatures increases with the proportion of saturated or almost saturated fatty acids, so it is maximum for animal fats like lard or butter, lower for high-oleic vegetable oils and it is minimum for the oils where the dominant fatty acid is linoleic acid. Depending on the temperature and the time of exposure to that temperature, any kind of fat will be degraded partially, more or less, depending on its heat resistance. So for frying, there is no doubt that the healthiest is to use lard or butter, less healthy is to use high-oleic sunflower oil or olive oil or avocado oil, and the least healthy is to use classic sunflower oil, corn oil, soy oil or sesame oil, like in this study. So there is no surprise about the results, they are exactly as expected and well known. The various kinds of fat must be used for appropriate purposes. When misusing them, any kind of fat may be unhealthy.

Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
>less healthy is to use high-oleic sunflower oil or olive oil or avocado oil, and the least healthy is to use classic sunflower oil, corn oil, soy oil or sesame oil, like in this study. Most vegetable oils are linoleic. It is only recently that high oelic cooking oil has become a thing. I'm not aware of how prevelant it is in china. And of course olives and avocados are not vegetables. The study actually represents what vegetable oil is pretty well. The data go back to when HO vegetable oils were not a thing, and I speculate they are still not a thing in china, though I may be wrong. The title is still a bit misleading given that the study is more specific than the conclusion but I think you are overstating the dgree to which that is the case.