Discussion of how consumption of processed seed oils triggers similar neurological pathways as smoking weed to increase appetite and food intake to make us fat.
Did you know that vegetable oils in the diet not only contribute to health problems but are a big contributor to weight problems too?
Even the so-called heart-healthy vegetable fats like grapeseed oil should be avoided!
As you can see from the photo above, the cooking oils section of the supermarket is overloaded with these types of fats.
These unhealthy lipids also include Smart Balance and other “natural oil blends” in tubs in the refrigerated section. They are, in essence, nothing more than rebranded versions of toxic margarine.
These factory fats are expanding your backside with every spread of the knife on your morning toast whether you realize it or not.
Omega-6 Seed Oil Dangers
The reason behind vegetable, aka “seed” oils and weight gain is the type of fat they contain…omega-6.
Other names for this type of fat are linoleic acid or polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs).
Note that these factory fats are very different from inflammation-lowering gamma linolenic acid in organ meats and a few other foods. This special kind of omega-6 fat (that acts like an omega-3) actually helps you lose weight.
Are you confused yet?
The rancid seed oils that constitute the primary fats in the Western diet come from soy, corn, rice bran, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, and canola (which also contains rancid omega-3 fat).
While eating seeds and grains in whole food form is not a bad thing, concentrating the oils from them is.
The fact is that there isn’t a whole lot of oil in an ear of corn or a soybean.
Thus, to make an entire bottle of corn or soybean oil takes violent and heavily industrialized processing.
Suffice it to say that you would be hard-pressed to duplicate it in your home kitchen like the ease of churning cream into butter!
Seed Oils and the Munchies
Here’s where the “fat” part comes in.
While a very small amount of omega-6 fats is necessary for health, when consumed in excess as happens with the Western diet, vegetable oils contribute to the overproduction of neuromodulatory lipids.
These substances are called endocannabinoids and are responsible for signaling hunger to the brain.
Guess what these lipids do?
They give you the munchies!
You may notice that the word endocannabinoids is similar to the etymology of cannabis (weed). Weed is famous for giving people the munchies too.
Thus, it doesn’t seem too much of a stretch to consider seed oils as the marijuana of fatty acids.
Now you know why you can’t stop eating a jumbo bag of chips or a box of cookies made with corn, soy, sunflower, or any other high omega-6 seed oil.
What about that organic dressing loaded with omega-6 oils drizzled on your salad at lunchtime?
Could it be a contributing reason for the urge to overeat on the main course or the snack attack at 3 pm?
Traditional Fats Cause Satiation, Not Overeating
Just try to gorge yourself the same way with a box of cookies made with butter or coconut oil.
Even French fries traditionally cooked in beef fat (tallow) are difficult to overeat.
You see, whole natural fats like tallow satiate you and keep your blood sugar steady.
The result is that you stay full and comfortable for longer in addition to eating much less in the first place!
Vegetable oils, on the other hand, stimulate you neurologically to keep eating far beyond what constitutes a healthy portion.
What’s most troubling is that food manufacturers are doubling down on the vegetable oil scam.
Instead of switching their products to better fats, they continue to use the most damaging (and profitable) ones.
Adding insult to injury, manufacturers market some of these munchie-inducing fats such as CLA safflower oil as a weight loss aid!
It seems with America’s weight problem now at a crisis level, it’s time for a return to the traditional fats of our ancestors.
Isn’t it high time to stop listening to the talking heads on TV and take matters into your own hands?
Do a pantry cleanout and chuck every item that contains fats that require a literal factory to process.
Your stomach and your backside will thank you!
Get the Skinny on Fat
My book Get Your Fats Straight
References
(1) Why Women Need Fat, William Lassek MD
(2) Dark Calories: How Vegetable Oils Destroy Our Health, Cate Shanahan MD
Great site, Sarah, thanks. Just wondering about olive oil. I didn’t really understand whether you said it was ok or not. I don’t cook with it but we use it a lot for salad dressing. Is that ok?
as long as you aren’t heating it, extra virgin olive oil is great on salads or used as a bread dipping, to my knowledge.
How much is too much cod liver oil? I just read today something that said it thins the blood, and that too much can even cause hemorraghic stroke. I take it daily and now so does my 6 year old daughter for treating her cavities. Any opinion on this?
I give my children a full tsp each day and have been doing so for years.
Hi Angela, I replied to your post on Facebook, but in case you didn’t see it (or anyone else sees this), I’ll post here too. CLO apparently does cause blood thinning, but I believe that’s why you NEED to get vitamin K at the same time as it has the opposite effect. Your daughter should be getting vitamin K if you are following a proper cavity healing protocol as the vitamin A & D are essentially worthless in that respect without vitamin K, so there shouldn’t be a concern.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/06/vitamin-k2-menatetrenone-mk-4.html
Any thoughts on grape seed oil?
Grape seed oil is high in omega-6. We already have plenty of this in our diet. I do not use it.
Thanks, Sarah. I heartily agree 🙂 I was just wondering if you know of a way of making chips at home with the proper fats? I know chips are a carb and aren’t normally great or you anyways, but… my husband is extremely thin (and hasn’t been able to gain weight for many years) and so I encourage him to eat healthy carbs. I recently found some corn chips that are pre-soaked in lime, but I’m sure the oil is rancid and bad. I’d much rather make some at home if/when I have the time. Do you know a way?
Thanks so much for your posts. They are most interesting.
I don’t make chips but I do make french fries … organic potatoes sliced up and fried in tallow. Very yummy. I don’t make them too often though as frying any carb even in a healthy oil results in some acrylamide (carcinogen) being formed.
Thanks! That’s a great idea. I’d forgotten about tallow.
I might suggest that the primary factors precipitating overeating (of anything) are: restrictive attitudes about food, attempts at weight loss, and lack of reliable access to food (as sometimes happens when people diet, or simply fail to plan for their food needs). Fascinating studies have been done on the eating behaviors of children whose food choices were overly restricted. These are the children (and eventually adults?) who overeat highly palatable food (such as the dreaded corn oil fried chips) when offered them. Context is very, very important.
Great post. Ever since I started eating traditional whole foods I have lost weight when I wasn’t even trying to. Thanks Sarah for keeping us informed on the dangers of non traditional foods.
Excellent, concise post. Thanks, Sarah. Sharing this right away. 🙂
In regards to overeating, it seems to me that when first switching to a real food diet, I couldn’t get enough! I wanted to always eat, and eat some more! This wasn’t the same as overeating though. I felt hungry, I was craving more butter. I wonder if my body wasn’t making up for all that lost time of low fat eating. Now I think my appetite has regulated and I certainly notice that I get full very quick, that’s not to say that sometimes I don’t eat a little more, because its sooooo good! But even then, its much harder to do that when eating real fats than when eating processed foods.
Yes, this is a common occurrence. When we first started eating raw grassfed cream in my house, my husband went nuts and was eating 8-9 quarts per month just by himself (I am not exaggerating). 10 years later he eats about 2-3 quarts per month and this is his typical consumption after going wild for a period of time at first. He just had some tissue replenishment to do after being starved of all those fat soluble vitamins for so long.
Unsaturated oils go rancid spontaneously when exposed to oxygen at room/body temperature. Rancid oils facilitate the lipid peroxidation chain reaction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_peroxidation
Vitamin E helps terminate the chain reaction, and saturated fats lend stability to unsaturated oils…
Nice post. 🙂
-James
Are all these unsaturated oils really rancid? Most health sites suggest this, but is there a proof of it? It is claimed that since they are deodorized we cannot detect that they are rancid.
Still haven’t seen solid proof of this.
Additionally, if it is rancid, can we say with certainty that it will be bad for us?