Are Seed Oils bad for us somehow?

Is it not that seed oils are bad for you, but that they are being really overhyped as a miracle cure by the usua suspects.
 
Is it not that seed oils are bad for you, but that they are being really overhyped as a miracle cure by the usua suspects.

No, the opposite.

They are considered to be an unholy problem.

Why are people fat? seed oils.
Why are people getting cancer Seed oils.
Why are people getting autoimmune diseases? Seed oils.
Why did Putin invade Ukraine? Seed oils.

etc....

Ultimately the people talking about this have some other thing they are selling. Fad diets, supplements, podcasts...
 
My favorite was a website I saw years ago saying that canola oil was extracted from a close relative of the mustard plant, which they claimed was "the source of the deadly Mustard Gas used in World War I".
Hope they never come across a pot of mustard cress, they'd be phoning the EPA (the phone call will never be answered...)
 
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The advocates of a carnivore diet like to vilify seed oils. As well as almost everything else, except red meat and offal. Oh, they do seem fond taking excessive amounts of weird supplements as well.
I've definitely seen that but it seems like the anti-seed oil thing has spread. Honestly, the blanket all seed oils are bad for these sciency sounding reasons is the only reason I really question it. If it were just one kind of seed that was a problem it would be more believable. Also, they almost always through in something about inflamation.

One of the red flags of quackery is anyone that suggests any one thing is the cause of disease or any one thing is the cure.
 
Why are people fat? seed oils.
Well, the hilarious part of this one in particular is that it probably isn't diet at all. It's more likely air conditioning, convenience, and more time spent inside. Lack of sunlight is also probably a factor. But anyway, I'm just guessing... don't have any science ready to add to the conversation.

Don't get me wrong, though. The reduced protein in our diets over time is also concerning, but that doesn't suggest eliminating anything. It just suggests noticing how many foods seem to have surprisingly less protein than you'd think they would, and especially noticing that many which brag about protein content on the box don't actually have much of it, either. To get good protein content, you generally have to make it yourself from raw ingredients, rather than buying something pre-made to pop into the microwave.

So increasing protein does make sense, but naming seed oils as evil is a bit of a red herring on that score.
 
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Has protein actually been reduced ?

Until comparatively recently most people couldn't afford animal based protein on a regular basis. Sure the upper crust would have meats and cheeses but most people would just have bread, gruel, oatmeal or a similar carbohydrate on all but the most special occasions.

IMO we are fat because we have access to affordable, calorie dense food.
 
Has protein actually been reduced ?

Until comparatively recently most people couldn't afford animal based protein on a regular basis. Sure the upper crust would have meats and cheeses but most people would just have bread, gruel, oatmeal or a similar carbohydrate on all but the most special occasions.

IMO we are fat because we have access to affordable, calorie dense food.
Well... maybe. Dunno. Haven't studied trends explicitly. I suppose I'm just basing it on what we ate at home (which included chickens we butchered ourselves, occasional caught fish, deer meat, and beef/pork by the half hog/beef stored year round in the deep freeze... oh, and eggs from the aforementioned chickens), compared to what I've experienced city folk eating, including myself as a single person. We even ate pheasants and wild rabbits now and then (a bit gamy for my taste).

I come from rural roots. I suppose the fact that a lowering percentage live in rural areas might suggest all by itself that maybe it'd skew the numbers that way. But I've done no number crunching.

I do notice that canned or processed foods don't have as much protein as you'd think they would. Some of the reason is obvious... just look at the pre-made hamburger patties that contain soy meal in your local store. The stuff in your real meat department is nothing but meat. The only reliable way to get high protein is to do most of the work yourself. And that often comes in higher quantities than someone shopping for less than 4 or so usually wants to get. And it also costs more.

I guess it's kind of like how they used to add sawdust to soup in lean times to make people feel more full. That's what the people who process foods sometimes do behind the scenes, or something close to it... mostly for the sake of a race-to-the-bottom pricing competition. But then you just eat more, assuming it's available, so it doesn't actually make your food bill cheaper. And in the contemporary case, they're also adding sugar and appetite enhancers (salt is one, but there are others).

I had all sorts of high-calorie meat available when I was growing up, and also had desert on a regular basis. The results? At 18, I was 6'4 and only weighed 160 lbs. (scrawny). At 52, it's gone up to 230, tops (not ridiculously overweight, but a little). So to some degree, it may just be me. But I didn't start adding much fat specifically until I started eating a lot of fast food while on the road (and driving for many hours at a time). My ideal weight as an adult (nothing but muscle) would be around 185 or so, if I had to guess. I was approximately that weight in my 20s while paying no attention to my diet whatsoever, and that would've been in the 1990s. I spent a lot of my college years staying with Grandma (on the non-farm side of the family), which meant it involved a lot of fried taters and vegetables straight from her garden... but also plenty of meat... or at least a helping in every meal. Lots of cube steaks and hamburgers, and many barbecues over the summers.

I think it's probably more a question of whether you ever learned to cook a proper meal or not... and whether you have the ambition to do it. That skill is dying out a bit, from what I've seen. WWII generation was great at it... got spotty with the boomers and even worse with X. Heck, half of us don't even eat at the dinner table anymore. That used to be standard for every meal in most families.

And don't get me wrong. We shouldn't miss the fact that smoking reduces appetite. So does higher temperature. Those are other potential causes, and only one of these two is usable... maybe we like air conditioning a bit too much. And keep in mind that grandma never worked a day in her life outside the home once she was married, and did all the cooking other than barbecues. Changing gender roles have a bit to do with it, too, but I don't think we can go back.
 
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Well, for most of human history, having enough food was not a given. In some parts of the world this is still true, of course. But in the richer parts of the world, food is abundant. And tasty! And highly palatable - it's not grisly and you don't have to spit out bones and seeds etc... You can buy cakes and donuts for barely any money at all and each one can have 300 or more calories. And people eat these between meals, or on the road as you say.

So it is hardly surprising that when food is tasty and abundant, people will eat more than when food is not tasty and abundant.

The idea that we need to look for some magical ingredient, like seed oils, that if we remove it, we will solve the obesity epidemic is just idiocy.

By the way, the proper meal thing is a good point. Though I have seen it argued that it is down to whether or not there is a culinary tradition. A lot of countries that are also rich, but don't have the same levels of obesity, have recognizable culinary traditions that get passed down. I suppose the US DOES have a recognizable culinary tradition, but much of it is fast food.
 
Well, for most of human history, having enough food was not a given. In some parts of the world this is still true, of course. But in the richer parts of the world, food is abundant. And tasty! And highly palatable - it's not grisly and you don't have to spit out bones and seeds etc... You can buy cakes and donuts for barely any money at all and each one can have 300 or more calories. And people eat these between meals, or on the road as you say.

So it is hardly surprising that when food is tasty and abundant, people will eat more than when food is not tasty and abundant.

The idea that we need to look for some magical ingredient, like seed oils, that if we remove it, we will solve the obesity epidemic is just idiocy.

By the way, the proper meal thing is a good point. Though I have seen it argued that it is down to whether or not there is a culinary tradition. A lot of countries that are also rich, but don't have the same levels of obesity, have recognizable culinary traditions that get passed down. I suppose the US DOES have a recognizable culinary tradition, but much of it is fast food.
Well, the US has multiple culinary traditions. I suppose my family's mostly come from Ireland and Germany, though... but with a bit of the WWII American gardening fad thrown in, and several generations lived over here before my grandparents. But it's decaying from what it once was, not all that far back. That was my point.

And yeah, the seed oil thing is silly. That we can agree on.

Even with deserts, it's gone from making to buying. My grandma was an absolute master of pie making (usually apple). It wasn't even always a special occasion. We weren't rich. Grandpa was a construction focused plumber who retired before I can remember. Mom was a special ed teacher. Dad was a social worker that went schitzo, moved back in with his parents after the divorce, and then ran a lawn service. Stepfather was always a laborer of some sort that did light farming on the side. But we were never short on food. It was just the right sort of food -which was my point - that being something made at home more often than microwaved preprocessed stuff, and fast food was extremely rare. Protein was decidedly NOT rare.
 
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Mexico has a general genetic ability to get fat, a diet rich in indigestible corn, cheap greasy meat cuts and lard.
Combine all that in a situation where sufficient food is available to most and many are not active enough an obesity problem has emerged.

It's our fault, not one magically toxic ingredient. Even refried beans are given a second load of lard to absorb when made traditionally.
We need to get smarter, not try to find a scapegoat hidden in fast food.
 
Mexico has a general genetic ability to get fat, a diet rich in indigestible corn, cheap greasy meat cuts and lard.
Combine all that in a situation where sufficient food is available to most and many are not active enough an obesity problem has emerged.

It's our fault, not one magically toxic ingredient. Even refried beans are given a second load of lard to absorb when made traditionally.
We need to get smarter, not try to find a scapegoat hidden in fast food.
Just a nitpick. The notion that fat makes you fat is completely wrong. It comes from the "you are what you eat" campaigns of the 70s and 80s. Eaten fat is no more likely to be stored as fat than carbs or sugars.

I'd more be concerned with portion size. It's a straight up calorie calculation, not a type of food. Funnily enough, if the portion size is too small, you're just going to eat two instead of one. If a food company gets that just right, they sell lots more food, because you'll eat two instead of one and a quarter. And that brings us back to cheap extenders (sawdust in soup, soy meal in hamburger and whatever else they're putting in to make it cheaper by volume), which cheaply extend the supply at the cost of protein. Also, appetite enhancers are a further consideration (MSG, salt, sugar, corn syrup, refined flour, and yes, fat is arguably one but nowhere near as powerful as others).

I'm not all that worried about cholesterol, either. The clogged arteries of the past were more due to trans fat than saturated fat. People do still have heart attacks, but we've fixed a part of that problem. But use that excuse at your own risk.

Oh, and what I've been failing to point out specifically and assumed people might know: Protein is directly chemically related to satiety... meaning it makes you less hungry when you get enough on a regular basis. That's probably why food companies are trying to get people who don't have Crohn's disease to quit gluten, if I had to guess. It's all about them Benjamin's.

Seed oils? A red herring.
 
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Anyway, the food disinformation is so bad anymore that it doesn't make sense to listen to anybody that gets paid money in any fashion for the message. Most of what's out there is coming directly from people who profit from both your overconsumption and your confusion. This is no different. They used to say that you should get about half your calories from protein. I'd say that's about right. It was the low fat trends that provided the excuse to change it. If you want to be less hungry, you should probably track your protein to calorie ratio.

I got paid nothing for this message. I also don't consider myself much of an expert. I just dieted not long ago and looked some things over. It seems to be in the right ballpark (targeting plants rather than meat, although seeds typically have protein), but it's a foul ball.

And no, I'm not condoning a fad diet, either (Atkins?). I figure most people can come up with their own plan that they're more likely to stick to than following somebody else's instructions. That way you OWN it.

Just keep in mind that you can track calories by adding up individual ingredients, and then manage your own portions--rather than buying premade food prepackaged in a way that's designed to fail.
 
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I accept fats are not the main cause of obesity, overeating and bad habits are.
But combined a bad diet and bad habits together are worse.

The "it's natural " argument gets beat to death frying up some veggies that are supposedly good for us as opposed to steaming or another prep method. Everything here is prepared by frying it, except soups.
It's traditional. Somehow that makes it good to most.
 
BTW...

Soy is added to foods to increase the protein.
With respect to some foods, that makes perfect sense. In pre-pressed hamburger patties, it doesn't. I'm mostly complaining about all the pre-made crap that pretends to have lots of meat in it, but when you look at the protein content on the label, it doesn't seem to reflect that. And yes, whey protein (and soy, as desired) can be a substitute for meat. I'm not anti-vegan. I have no desire to do it that way myself, but I'm fine with whatever others decide to do with their lives. I just think it best if it's informed and intentional.

The truth is, you've got a bigger uphill battle if you intend to quit meat, but it's certainly possible. That commitment comes at a cost. It's a bit easier if you're okay with dairy and/or fish, of course, which was the old way of doing it for a reason.

In other news, I just had a "second breakfast" of oatmeal with a sprinkle of cinnamon (no sugar), a single shake from the salt shaker, and a handful of chopped dates for supper. I did this because I wasn't all that hungry, not because I'm trying to lose weight. it was a double "helping" on the oatmeal, which has 10g of protein all by itself, and the dates have a little bit, too. It's only a little above 300 calories, total. Lunch was a cube steak with a large helping of fried taters (with half an onion), all fried up in the skillet - not measured. There was no "snacking" and my preferred beverage is coffee (2 pots a day), not soda.
 
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Hmm...

If you're thinking that meat is 100% protein, I can see the problem.

The rule of thumb for meat is about 20% protein.

That's something that my dietician warned me about quite a long time ago.

I was thinking 90g tin of fish is 90g protein...

But if you read the label it's much less, more like 14g.

Not because of fillers, but because of reality.
 
Hmm...

If you're thinking that meat is 100% protein, I can see the problem.

The rule of thumb for meat is about 20% protein.

That's something that my dietician warned me about quite a long time ago.

I was thinking 90g tin of fish is 90g protein...

But if you read the label it's much less, more like 14g.

Not because of fillers, but because of reality.
Nope. Not a problem here. I was looking it up explicitly when dieting for each meal. Meat portions don't come with a nutrition label if you're buying the right stuff, but it's easy enough to look it up online. I'm still in the eat whatever phase (within reason), but will be dieting again this year between June and October or so... my weight still isn't quite where I want it yet, but I haven't noticeably gained much back, either.

Eggs are probably the best protein to calorie ratio, as I remember. Whole milk isn't too bad, either, if you can stomach it. I used to boil a dozen eggs all at once and add one or two to meals to reach my calorie target when the portions were short of what I wanted. I'm a strict calorie counter in diet mode... but with an emphasis on protein. When out of diet mode, my choices are still being informed by the experience... I just don't bother calculating and measuring.
 
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I was mainly complaining about when something designed to be your "main dish" turns out to only have 4-5g of protein when you look at the label. If that's your main dish, your side dishes better be those boiled eggs--each of those has 6g at 78 cal. Might want a glass of milk, too, if your calorie budget can afford it. I made that mistake a few times before looking a little closer at the store. Of course, I then started to pull away from prepared stuff entirely. Think it was a lasagna or frozen burritos or something... maybe both. It's still usable. You've just got to keep the portion small and fill the rest of your calories with something that has more protein per calorie than your so-called main dish.
 
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I have to agree with you on pre-made meals.

Recently, on impulse, I bought a 'bangers and mash' frozen meal.

Height of stupidity on my part.

Sausages designed to be microwaved? Blech. You'd be hard pressed to find a less sausage like sausage.

The mashed potato? Added wheat starch, maltodextrin, salt, xanthan gum, fillers, etc.
(Beware of any premade 'potato' product this seems to generally becoming a thing.)

The worst part? Bangers and mash is a trivially easy meal to make, and you can choose sausages anywhere from the cheapest to the most gourmet depending on your budget.

Depending on your taste/dietary requirements, you can mash the potato with butter/margerine, garlic/Asafoetida (I use a drizzle of garlic flavoured olive oil).

The only benefit of buying the 'ready meal' is the lack of washing up.

I'm still kicking myself around the block for that one.
 
My diet and eating habits are crap. I eat once a day of whatever was made, or remaining in the refrigerator if my wife ate a meal with her sister again.
Plastic bags are the main delivery system when away from home.

I am not obese (nor athletic) despite bad habits. I know how to not exceed sensible limits in intake.
I make absolutely zero effort to know calorie count, ingredients or whatever if it is something I will eat.
Sometimes it's better to not know.
 
Nope. Not a problem here. I was looking it up explicitly when dieting for each meal. Meat portions don't come with a nutrition label if you're buying the right stuff, but it's easy enough to look it up online.
I'm still in the eat whatever phase (within reason), but will be dieting again this year between June and October or so... my weight still isn't quite where I want it yet, but I haven't noticeably gained much back, either.
Eggs are probably the best protein to calorie ratio, as I remember. Whole milk isn't too bad, either, if you can stomach it. I used to boil a dozen eggs all at once and add one or two to meals to reach my calorie target when the portions were short of what I wanted.
I'm a strict calorie counter in diet mode... but with an emphasis on protein. When out of diet mode, my choices are still being informed by the experience... I just don't bother calculating and measuring.

But this in itself seems like way too much work. Yo-yo dieting and calorie counting just means that you haven't found a sustainable balance.
 
But this in itself seems like way too much work. Yo-yo dieting and calorie counting just means that you haven't found a sustainable balance.
Maybe. I'm mainly just taking advantage of the summer warm cycle. It's what works for me. It's also when I build strength, although you might find that odd, too. My diets aren't that stingy... it's just a maximum calorie target of what someone my height and on the low end of the ideal weight range should be eating for no gain (but it was maximum... so it was practically a little less). It's strict, but not stingy. Like I said, it didn't yo-yo much, if any, just going by how my clothes fit and what I look like in the mirror. I don't have a reliable scale. The one I got last year was complete garbage -- the spring gradually lost tension on its own, I and I wasn't losing as much as it said I was... although I did lose some (could tell by looking). I haven't totally quit exercising, either... it's just no longer a specific regimen... I just randomly do a set of squats or pushups or whatever (occasional run) whenever I feel like it on the off cycle, instead of a specific plan (no longer a daily rotating cycle through different muscle groups with a weekly rest day). It's not just weight loss. It's recomposition.

Summer just happens to be when I have the most ambition for such things. Also, there are no holidays getting in the way... at least none that my family (what's left of it) insists I attend.

And, of course, it isn't an every day calculation. It's more like every week (or more), and then following what I preset... buying anything not in premade portions as a single person results in eating the same thing every day for a while.

Also, I'm not saying my setup will work for everyone. Not selling anything. I do realize that people who eat together would have their own issues that I don't, for instance. I guess my point here was that hunger wasn't really a problem because I was packing it with protein, and still do loosely emphasize protein more than I used to.
 
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