I’ve spent years standing over fryers, timing the sizzle, teaching cooks the little tricks that make a crust sing. I’ve watched menus and kitchens change—not because culinary values improved, but because convenience products and industrial formulations made it cheaper to run restaurants without chefs.

Now the internet’s favorite food villain is “seed oils.” One word to point to and feel virtuous. But here’s the blunt truth: seed oils aren’t the root of our health crisis—ultra-processed foods and the way we eat them are.

Let’s Be Clear About the Science (The Stuff People Actually Study)

There’s strong evidence that replacing saturated fats (SFAs) with polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) improves cardiovascular outcomes in many randomized trials and meta-analyses (Mozaffarian et al., 2010).

But the story is nuanced. Re-analyses from the Minnesota Coronary Experiment and other trials show that increasing linoleic-acid-rich vegetable oils lowered cholesterol but didn’t clearly reduce mortality—and in some analyses raised concerns about unintended effects (Ramsden et al., 2016).

Systematic reviews show modest cardiovascular benefits when saturated fat is replaced with unsaturated fats, but uncertainty remains around very high n-6 intake (Hooper et al., 2015).

Bottom line: PUFAs can be better than SFAs in some contexts. Blanket statements like “all seed oils are poison” ignore clinical nuance and the real drivers of disease.

The Chemistry and the Kitchen: Why Seed Oils Are Everywhere

Seed oils—soybean, corn, canola, sunflower, cottonseed—are neutral, cheap, stable, and technically excellent for frying, emulsifying, and creating the mouthfeel consumers expect. Manufacturers use them to make crisp chips, flaky pastries, and shelf-stable frosting at low cost (ScienceDirect, 2021).

But function ≠ virtue. A fat that fries something perfectly crisp isn’t automatically healthy to eat daily.

The Actual Public-Health Lever: Food Products and Portion/Processing

Population health won’t improve if we just swap one oil for another. Portion sizes massively affect intake (double the portion → ~35% more consumption), and access to hyper-palatable, engineered foods drives extra calories and weight gain (Zlatevska et al., 2014).

Restaurants also rely on pre-marinated proteins, bagged sauces, and frozen products to cut labor costs. These products depend on seed oils—not because they’re evil—but because they’re efficient.

Harmful Byproducts: When Oils Are Abused

Unsaturated fats are chemically reactive. Overheating, reusing, or poor storage creates lipid oxidation products—aldehydes and other compounds—linked to harm in animal studies and markers of disease in humans (Le Gresley et al., 2021).

This isn’t a reason to ban seed oils. It’s a reason to limit repeated deep-frying, avoid rancid oils, and keep portions in check.

The “Sugar-Free” Trap (A Family Story)

My mother has Celiac and autoimmune problems—gut health was never a one-product fix. It was a whole-food shift. Kimchi wasn’t magic.

My stepfather had Type 2 diabetes and relied on medications while still eating “sugar-free” processed products. He didn’t improve until he shifted to a whole-food-focused program, pulling back on ultra-processed “diet” convenience foods. Now he’s reducing dosages and coming off some meds—not because he quit seed oils, but because he quit letting engineered products dominate his diet.

The literature supports this: nonnutritive sweeteners and “sugar-free” replacements aren’t guaranteed metabolic fixes (Azad et al., 2017).

Policy Theatre vs. Policy Teeth — What MAHA Didn’t Do

The recent MAHA (Make America Healthy Again / Make Our Children Healthy Again) strategy report acknowledged ultra-processed foods but avoided concrete levers: no real portion limits, marketing restrictions, or pricing reforms. Critics noted it was long on diagnosis, short on mandatory action.

If you want fewer engineered junk foods, those are the levers you need. MAHA mostly didn’t deliver them.

Something to Chew On

We’ve spent millions of years evolving with food. Our bodies, digestion, and cravings all grew alongside the plants, animals, and natural ingredients that shaped us. You can’t improve that by adding a “better” oil or removing a “bad” one. The shortcuts, the convenience foods, the engineered snacks—they’re killing us faster than any single ingredient could.

Seed oils didn’t make my stepfather diabetic—the lack of focus on real meals and reliance on ultra-processed foods did. When he started cooking, eating whole foods, and paying attention to what went on his plate, his medications began coming down. Real change came from real food, not ingredient swaps.

My mother’s gut didn’t heal from kimchi or trendy powders. It healed because she learned to eat thoughtfully, consistently, and in ways that honored the food-human relationship we’ve evolved over millennia.

The truth is simple: fried chicken, chips, pastries—they can exist in your life—but if they dominate your plate, your body suffers. Health isn’t fixed by eliminating one villain ingredient; it’s shaped by the meals you actually build, the patterns you maintain, and the attention you give to what you eat.

Stop chasing villains. Start respecting your food. Cook. Eat whole. Pay attention. Evolution didn’t design us to be optimized by marketing or ingredient swaps—it designed us to thrive on real, consistent nourishment. That’s the change that sticks, one plate at a time.

References

• Mozaffarian D, Micha R, Wallace S. Effects on Coronary Heart Disease of Increasing Polyunsaturated Fat in Place of Saturated Fat: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. PLoS Med. 2010 Mar 23;7(3):e1000252. PMC
  
  
• Ramsden CE, Zamora D, Majchrzak-Hill A, et al. Re-evaluation of the traditional diet-heart hypothesis: analysis of recovered data from the Minnesota Coronary Experiment (1968–73). BMJ. 2016;353:i1246. PubMed
  
  
• Hooper L, et al. Reduced or modified dietary fat for preventing cardiovascular disease. Cochrane Review (update). 2015. PMC
  
  
• Zlatevska N, Dubelaar C, Holden SS. Sizing Up the Effect of Portion Size on Consumption: A Meta-Analytic Review. Journal of Marketing Research. 2014. SAGE Journals
  
  
• Le Gresley A, et al. “Real-World” Evaluation of Lipid Oxidation Products and Chronic Non-Communicable Disease Risk from Fried Foods. Hepatobiliary Surg Nutr. 2021. PMC
  
  
• Azad MB, et al. Nonnutritive sweeteners and cardiometabolic health: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials and prospective cohort studies. CMAJ. 2017;189(28):E929–E939. PMC
  
  
• Hamley S. Review of evidence on n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids and cardiovascular outcomes. Nutrition Journal. 2017. BioMed Central