What is Vegetable Oil?

Vegetable oil is really a marketing term, none of them are actually oils from a vegetable. The oils are corn, canola, cottonseed, soybean, safflower, and sunflower. Also, grape seed and oat bran oil are sometimes used. These are actually seed oils. Eating the foods themselves is fine, but when we make a highly industrialized seed oil from them, it’s another story. These oils contain a substantial amount of polyunsaturated fat, which makes it very susceptible to oxidation in the following steps.

Processing of Vegetable oil, and Toxins From it

Vegetable oil requires 40-100 steps just in order to process it. This is considered ultra processed food. Olive oil just requires that you crush the olives in contrast. Some of the steps include bleaching, deodorizing, hexane, degumming, and high heat. The process creates many toxins in the oil such as acrolein, acrylamide, and aldehydes. Acrolein is the same toxin found in cigarettes, but it’s in higher amounts in vegetable oil. These oils are considered more toxic than sugar because you can metabolize sugar rather quickly, but these oils make up your cell membranes and can stick around for months. Consuming these oils creates many free radicals, most notably one called peroxynitrite. This is the most powerful free radical that exists. Most of us are carrying around 30% polyunsaturated fat on our bodies when it should be about 5% because of these oils. When this happens, you will have a lot of oxidation (aging) in your body and have depleted antioxidants. One study showed that just inhaling these oils in restaurant workers is enough to damage DNA. Another thing that happens is an imbalance of omega 3-6 ratio. Seed oils are very high in omega 6 fatty acid, which is pro-inflammatory. We need some omega 6, but most of us have too much. Omega 3s are anti-inflammatory. The ideal ratio of omega 3-6 is a 1-1, all the way to a 1-4 ratio. Today, some people have a 1-20 ratio, or even higher. This is creating a massive amount of inflammation, setting the stage for chronic disease.

Healthy Oil Alternatives

There are many oil alternatives you can use that will add to your health. The higher the saturated fat content, the more stable the oil. This is because saturated fat is very stable at high heat. Coconut, avocado, macadamia nut, olive, ghee, and butter are great. Be careful to focus on quality. Olive and avocado oil can legally be adulterated to add up to 40% vegetable oil to them.