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I'm willing to consider and eventually accept the idea that vegetable oil, or some class of oil or fat in general, is causing significant public health problems
by derbOac 4y ago
I'm willing to consider and eventually accept the idea that vegetable oil, or some class of oil or fat in general, is causing significant public health problems and increases risk of disease. However, every time I delve into the research on vegetable oil I end up being more confused.
This seems to be the case in many of the studies cited in this essay as well. For example, a number of the studies aggregate over margarine and other types of vegetable oil, which seems really difficult or impossible to interpret, especially given that trans fats are now generally accepted to be unhealthy.
Other problems arise here in and elsewhere in defining oil composition. I've noticed for instance that safflower and sunflower oil are almost always lumped together in one category, even though there are chemically very different forms of both available. For example, high oleic and other sunflower oils are really different, and sunflower oil in general is generally relatively easily modified genetically speaking. So talking about "sunflower oil" as a single ingredient biochemically is problematic.
There's also issues with cooked versus raw oils, which the essay alludes to but seems extremely important given how different fat structures are transformed by heat.
I'm not trying to tear down the piece, but I do find this area of research really difficult to interpret.
- alxmng 4y agoAgreed. Clearly there are huge chemical differences between coconut oil, sunflower oil, and tallow. The science is too shoddy to draw any conclusions. It’s hard to take seriously studies that don’t consider olive oil a “vegetable oil”.
- krona 4y agoFrom the article: > “Vegetable oils” in this context refer to oils extracted from seeds, grains, and legumes This excludes olive/avocado/coconut/nut oils.
- permo-w 4y agobut then when you buy “vegetable oil” it invariably contains olive oil edit: okay maybe “invariably” is a bit strong. “often in my country” is perhaps more accurate
- kragen 4y agoaround here it's sunflower oil or sometimes soy oil with some sunflower oil in it
- permo-w 4y agoin my experience it’s been sunflower oil with canola and then like 10% olive
- derefr 4y agoThat's not most places. Vegetable oils are expected to be able to be used as frying oils. Olive oil has too low of a smoke-point to be used in frying.
- jemmyw 4y agoThat's also a confusing point. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/is-olive-oil-good-for-cooking https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/is-olive-oil-good-for-c... says it has a moderately high smoke point and possibly more importantly has a composition that is more resistive to oxidative damage than vegetable oils. I usually fry and cook with olive oil.
- permo-w 4y ago>Olive oil has too low of a smoke-point to be used in frying. this is a common myth you also hear stuff about whether extra virgin is better or worse for cooking than just basic, with people coming out strongly on either side
- alxmng 4y agoCategorizing oils like this seems counter-productive to studying the effect of consuming certain fatty acids, as oils from the same category have wildly different composition. Coconut and olive oils are both from fruits, but contain different fatty acids.
- derefr 4y agoI believe the oils aren't divided this way for any taxonomic reason, but rather because we already have evidence of olive, avocado, coconut etc. oils having little-to-no impact on health, in contrast to other oils. The groups are basically "presumed innocent" oils and "presumed guilty" oils. Or, to be more charitable, the groupings can also be looked at as "oils humans evolved eating" (olive oil, butter, coconut milk, etc) vs "oils we just started eating recently, because they can't be extracted without modern technology."
- alxmng 4y agoHumans did not evolve eating olive or coconut oil. Seed oils do not require modern technology. Soybean, sesame, sunflower, etc. can be extracted with stone pressing and were extracted that way prior to any chemical extraction process. Where my family is from they’ve been eating sunflower and peanut oil for hundreds of years, milled and pressed with stone.
- Gigachad 4y agoThat’s why people started using the term “seed oil”. Olive oil is not a seed oil while sunflower and rapeseed oil is. Olives also aren't a vegetable though.
- canucker2016 4y agoI believe the rapeseed marketers/producers would prefer it be called "canola oil".
- Gigachad 4y agoFrom what I understand, Canola is a more specific product. Like how Flaxseed oil and Linseed oil come from the same plant. Wikipedia mentions Canola as "a version" rather than "also known as"
- lizknope 4y agoCANada Oil Low in Acid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed_oil Canola was bred from rapeseed cultivars of B. napus and B. rapa at the University of Manitoba, Canada, by Keith Downey and Baldur R. Stefansson in the early 1970s,[9][10] having then a different nutritional profile than present-day oil in addition to much less erucic acid.[11] Canola was originally a trademark name of the Rapeseed Association of Canada, and the name was a condensation of "Can" from Canada and "OLA " meaning "Oil, low acid",[12][13] but is now a generic term for edible varieties of rapeseed oil in North America and Australasia.[14] The change in name serves to distinguish it from natural rapeseed oil, which has much higher erucic acid content.[15]
- AlexandrB 4y agoThen what's coconut oil? Coconuts are seeds.
- speg 4y agoAren’t they nuts? Every time a story about oil comes up on HN I’m so confused. Everyone has different terms and expectations. Is there a one pager somewhere where we can all agree on some common ground?
- chiefalchemist 4y ago> I'm willing to consider and . eventually accept the idea that vegetable oil, or some class of oil or fat in general, is causing significant public health problems and increases risk of disease. However, every time I delve into the research on vegetable oil I end up being more confused The class of oil you're looking for is called sugar. We all know Big Sugar paid off a couple of researchers to spin the blame on fats, and perception has been baised since. If we reduce sugar (including carbs) and we'll see health outcomes improve.
- tempsy 4y agoexcessive sugar consumption is bad, agreed, but vegetable oil is awful for very specific reasons that have nothing to do with macros.
- TomSwirly 4y agoFrom reading the rest of this page, I can safely say that your claim, "vegetable oil is awful", is just false. No one except you is claiming that. Some people are claiming that a subset of vegetable oils are bad, but so far I haven't seen one conclusive argument either way.
- wnolens 4y agoBig Sugar! gives new meaning to the name of an old band i used to listen to.. haha
- Gordonjcp 4y agoHey, remember Napster? There was a chat facility so you could chat to people who were poking around in your shared files. Many many years ago - easily 20 years ago - I was downloading stuff off Napster and the person whose computer I was poking at popped up in chat and said "hey if you like that band, you'll probably like this band Big Sugar, try this track Let It Ride". Maybe it was you.
- wnolens 4y ago
- TomSwirly 4y agoA lot of the people pushing these ideas are primarily motivated by being anti-vegan, so that might explain why such articles are all over the place.