5 ms·

Yes, I wasn't talking about unrefined olive, flax, sesame, or coconut. I don't think most people concerned about "seed oils" are concerned about those. It's t

Yes, I wasn't talking about unrefined olive, flax, sesame, or coconut. I don't think most people concerned about "seed oils" are concerned about those. It's the refined soybean oil, canola/rapeseed oil, cottonseed oil, grapeseed oil, sunflower seed oil, corn oil, safflower oil, peanut oil - these are the modern refined oils I'm referring to that were never eaten until very recently. I'd be dubious of refined / ultra processed olive and avocado oil too, which is a different thing from fresh cold pressed olive or avocado oil.

bryanlarsen 4mo ago
~10,000 years is also evolutionary recent. It's enough time for fast evolution to weed out stuff that is very directly maladaptive, but not enough time to weed out more subtle effects. And given that a bad diet tends to kill people well past their prime childbearing years, evolution might consider a bad diet a good thing.
- lithocarpus 4mo ago
  Good point, there are a lot of diseases of civilization that have been with us since large scale agriculture, that did not afflict most hunter gatherers.
jandrewrogers 4mo ago
It isn’t clear at all how refining oil makes it materially “worse” in terms of health than the unrefined equivalent. That claim lacks both evidence and a mechanism of action. Every argument I’ve seen demonstrates a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of the chemistry. These same bad chemistry takes are repeated everywhere by influencers. This isn’t unique to the oil discussions, dietary health is rife with vibe-based chemistry takes that are obviously unscientific.
- leereeves 4mo ago
  Among other mechanisms, refining removes nutrients and other beneficial molecules, while purifying taste and reducing volume making it easier to overeat. But the worst part isn't refining the oil itself, but the use of these oils in ultra-processed foods along with refined sweeteners, colorings, and fillers. Even if refined seed oils themselves aren't harmful, avoiding them is likely to be beneficial because it leads to avoiding ultra-processed foods.
  - gruez 4mo ago
    >Among other mechanisms, refining removes nutrients and other beneficial molecules, while purifying taste and reducing volume making it easier to overeat. Should we cancel vaccines and water purification while we're at it? It's not hard to come up with vaguely plausible reasons for why those are bad as well, eg. "hygiene hypothesis", "gut microbiome", or whatever. >But the worst part isn't refining the oil itself, but the use of these oils in ultra-processed foods along with refined sweeteners, colorings, and fillers. Even if refined seed oils themselves aren't harmful, avoiding them is likely to be beneficial because it leads to avoiding ultra-processed foods. It's ironic you cite ultra-processed foods, another category which has questionable rigor and applicability, but people nonetheless defend because "Even if ultra processed foods themselves aren't harmful, avoiding them is likely to be beneficial because it leads to avoiding unhealthy foods."
    - leereeves 4mo ago
      > It's ironic you cite ultra-processed foods, another category which has questionable rigor and applicability, but people nonetheless defend because "Even if ultra processed foods themselves aren't harmful, avoiding them is likely to be beneficial because it leads to avoiding unhealthy foods." The evidence that ultra processed foods are harmful is quite strong, much stronger than the association with saturated fat intake. Are you really suggesting that they might not be unhealthy?
      - gruez 4mo ago
        The objection isn't over whether "ultra-processed foods" as a group tend to be unhealthy, it's that the classification is not rigorous, and conflates what's actually unhealthy or not with an heuristic that's at times inaccurate. >Everyone knows that greens are good for your health and red meat is not. But everyone would laugh if I were to propose that red foods are dangerous and green ones healthy. I could prove my thesis making use of a few additional rules, such as postulating that some shades of red, tomatoes and apples for instance, should not be counted as red. >The Nova classification system, which sorts foods into four categories depending on the degree of processing they undergo, uses similar logic. There is no scientific justification for the assumption that the number of processing steps is of any relevance for the health properties of foods. Making “ultra-processed” popcorn or chips is exceedingly simple. Making “minimally processed” natural yogurt requires some 20 processes. >Heating is the process that affects foods the most, but heating is afforded no attention in Nova. It does not neatly fit into the processed or unprocessed scheme. In some cases it is essential for public health, in others it may induce carcinogens. And in a blatant example of the arbitrariness of the Nova classification, putting a loaf of bread into a bag moves it from the minimally processed to the ultra-processed category. >The flawed, but intuitively easy to grasp, label of ultra-processed food is a handy justification for blaming food-related health problems on profit-hungry food companies. And it enables politicians to divert funding from serious research to meaningless eye-catching interventions. >Petr Dejmek >Emeritus professor of food engineering >Lund University >Lund, Sweden

bryanlarsen 4mo ago

~10,000 years is also evolutionary recent. It's enough time for fast evolution to weed out stuff that is very directly maladaptive, but not enough time to weed out more subtle effects. And given that a bad diet tends to kill people well past their prime childbearing years, evolution might consider a bad diet a good thing.

lithocarpus 4mo ago
Good point, there are a lot of diseases of civilization that have been with us since large scale agriculture, that did not afflict most hunter gatherers.

jandrewrogers 4mo ago

It isn’t clear at all how refining oil makes it materially “worse” in terms of health than the unrefined equivalent. That claim lacks both evidence and a mechanism of action. Every argument I’ve seen demonstrates a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of the chemistry. These same bad chemistry takes are repeated everywhere by influencers. This isn’t unique to the oil discussions, dietary health is rife with vibe-based chemistry takes that are obviously unscientific.

leereeves 4mo ago
Among other mechanisms, refining removes nutrients and other beneficial molecules, while purifying taste and reducing volume making it easier to overeat. But the worst part isn't refining the oil itself, but the use of these oils in ultra-processed foods along with refined sweeteners, colorings, and fillers. Even if refined seed oils themselves aren't harmful, avoiding them is likely to be beneficial because it leads to avoiding ultra-processed foods.
- gruez 4mo ago
  >Among other mechanisms, refining removes nutrients and other beneficial molecules, while purifying taste and reducing volume making it easier to overeat. Should we cancel vaccines and water purification while we're at it? It's not hard to come up with vaguely plausible reasons for why those are bad as well, eg. "hygiene hypothesis", "gut microbiome", or whatever. >But the worst part isn't refining the oil itself, but the use of these oils in ultra-processed foods along with refined sweeteners, colorings, and fillers. Even if refined seed oils themselves aren't harmful, avoiding them is likely to be beneficial because it leads to avoiding ultra-processed foods. It's ironic you cite ultra-processed foods, another category which has questionable rigor and applicability, but people nonetheless defend because "Even if ultra processed foods themselves aren't harmful, avoiding them is likely to be beneficial because it leads to avoiding unhealthy foods."
  - leereeves 4mo ago
    > It's ironic you cite ultra-processed foods, another category which has questionable rigor and applicability, but people nonetheless defend because "Even if ultra processed foods themselves aren't harmful, avoiding them is likely to be beneficial because it leads to avoiding unhealthy foods." The evidence that ultra processed foods are harmful is quite strong, much stronger than the association with saturated fat intake. Are you really suggesting that they might not be unhealthy?
    - gruez 4mo ago
      The objection isn't over whether "ultra-processed foods" as a group tend to be unhealthy, it's that the classification is not rigorous, and conflates what's actually unhealthy or not with an heuristic that's at times inaccurate. >Everyone knows that greens are good for your health and red meat is not. But everyone would laugh if I were to propose that red foods are dangerous and green ones healthy. I could prove my thesis making use of a few additional rules, such as postulating that some shades of red, tomatoes and apples for instance, should not be counted as red. >The Nova classification system, which sorts foods into four categories depending on the degree of processing they undergo, uses similar logic. There is no scientific justification for the assumption that the number of processing steps is of any relevance for the health properties of foods. Making “ultra-processed” popcorn or chips is exceedingly simple. Making “minimally processed” natural yogurt requires some 20 processes. >Heating is the process that affects foods the most, but heating is afforded no attention in Nova. It does not neatly fit into the processed or unprocessed scheme. In some cases it is essential for public health, in others it may induce carcinogens. And in a blatant example of the arbitrariness of the Nova classification, putting a loaf of bread into a bag moves it from the minimally processed to the ultra-processed category. >The flawed, but intuitively easy to grasp, label of ultra-processed food is a handy justification for blaming food-related health problems on profit-hungry food companies. And it enables politicians to divert funding from serious research to meaningless eye-catching interventions. >Petr Dejmek >Emeritus professor of food engineering >Lund University >Lund, Sweden