One question I get continuously is about how and what to eat if you are trying to avoid seed oils.
While it seems simple at first, since vegetable oils of one type or another are in the vast majority of processed foods, this is not a simple question.
I once spent my lunch hour in the salad dressing aisle at Whole Foods, trying to figure out what to eat. I read every single label, and finally found one single dressing that listed olive oil as its sole fat ingredient—no other oil. Most 'cream' dressings are more soybean oil than dairy!
So it's certainly not as simple as question as it might seem at first.
People reducing their seed oil intake (starting with me!) have reported the following benefits:
- Lost weight.
- Reduced blood pressure.
- Reduced insulin resistance.
- Improvement of fatty liver disease.
- Resolution of auto-immune conditions.
- Reduced susceptibility to sunburn
Two of the people experiencing such benefits are Ashley and Dr. Brian Kerley .
They have faced a similar conundrum, as they removed seed oils from their diets they experienced benefits to their health, but they encountered the same difficulty in finding seed-oil free foods, and as they started spreading the news, they started encountering more and more people with the same questions. (See our discussion on YouTube below.)
Ashley initially started going to supermarkets and doing what I had done, going through the aisles and reading the labels, but she was compiling lists that people could buy as PDFs. These were very popular, but not super-easy to use, and obviously don't scale well. This was part of their Seed Oil Rebellion.
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| Visit the Seed Oil Rebellion site. |
A fellow with some experience in mobile apps reached out to Ashley and Brian with the idea of an app that folks could use while in the supermarket, and he had an alpha version fleshed out.
The initial version worked well as a proof-of-concept, and fulfilled some basic requirements, but getting it to the next step is going to require some more effort.
Why Is This Important?
- We think this is the biggest health issue of our times. Just speaking about America, the vast majority of Americans (some studies find ~90%) are sick with some sort of "chronic disease" such as heart disease, certain types of cancer, obesity, diabetes, or an auto-immune condition. All of these diseases are related to linoleic acid from seed oil consumption in one way or another, according to the medical research.
- Government-sponsored research shows clear health risks from seed oils. For instance, two of the most commonly-used oils, canola and soybean, contain alpha-linolenic acid, which converts to a carcinogen when heated, and is the only recognized cause for an increasing epidemic of lung-cancer in non-smoking women around the world. The similar omega-6 fat in all seed oils is linoleic acid, and it produces a similar chemical, which the U.S. National Toxicology Program found "could be expected" to be carcinogenic. They did this analysis in response to a request from the National Cancer Institute. It's a mystery why they didn't complete the research into potential carcinogenicity of a major food source in the U.S. These are only two of the many toxic compounds produced by cooking with and consuming seed oils.
- Government agencies, influential non-government organizations, and other medical professionals nevertheless continue to recommend the consumption of seed oils. It's clear that any change in policy may take further decades to occur. Can we wait?
- Consumer pressure can accomplish what governments will fail to attempt. Removal of trans-fats, for instance, began when corporations like Cargill and McDonalds recognized the hazards and responded to anticipated customer demand. This occurred long before the FDA was embarrassed into banning them. Cargill recommended a fat that would produce lower amounts of toxins, and while this was done for economic reasons, the outcome is the same: greater health benefits for consumers of McDonald's' products.
- Increasing our individual health can cause a fundamental reshaping of the obesogenic food environment. But as more people are able to make this change, corporations will notice and will start to respond to the demand by producing better food options, and choosing healthier, more environmentally sound fat sources such as dairy, Zero Acre's Cultured Oil, and other low-linoleic.
What Should You Do?
If you would like to support or participate in the seed oil rebellion, please visit our Seedy web site and help us* get this project to the next phase of development, while helping transform the American and world food supply to a healthier direction.
Please Visit The Seedy App Website!
* Ashley, Brian, and I are all founding stockholders in Seedy App Inc.
