The myths and misconceptions regarding seed oils seem to be growing every day at this point. These are some of the most prevalent unsubstantiated claims that continue to circulate on social media despite myself and many other science communicators’ best efforts to share the science based information time and time again.
Here are the claims I see most often, and I provide the truth behind these seed oil myths:
The claim that a food ingredient is an industrial waste product implies that because it may have been a waste stream at one point in time that somehow makes it bad to consume. Obviously, this reasoning does not prove anything about safety or nutrition of a food ingredient, but also utilizing a waste stream means there’s less waste, which isn’t a bad thing.
The word “industrial” is also used to imply something negative about the ingredient, but many different ingredients we consume are used in other industries (water, salt, baking soda, etc.) and once again, that tells you nothing about the health or safety of that food.
Besides all of that, this claim isn’t even true regarding seed oils. Seed and vegetable oils have been part of human culture for millennia. China and Japan produced soybean oil as early as 3000 B.C. Southern Europeans started to produce olive oil by 2000 B.C. People started producing olive oil in the Middle East almost 8,000 years ago. Canola was bred through conventional...
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