Welcome to Straight Talk on Health. I’m your host Dr. Chet Zelasko. Straight Talk on Health is a joint production with WGVU in Grand Rapids MI. I examine the practical application of health information. Nutrition. Exercise. Diet. Supplementation. I look at the science behind them, and let you know whether it’s something to consider or not. You can check out other things that I do on my website Drchet.com and sign up for my free emails.
I just can’t escape seed oils. I can handle the questions I get but I can’t handle the gurus, podcasters, and influencers who just have to comment about them. It lead me to watch a podcast I never listen to and watch a movie about how we’re being lied to about seed oils. I ended up checking into statements that were made about processing oils as well as mortality data and on and on. Time to check the facts.
Let me begin by stating again that seed oils contain essential omega-6 fatty acids that we need. The word essential means that we cannot make them from other fats and oils so we have to get them from foods. People online forget to mention that fact: they are essential. They are not inherently bad except that we consume far too many of them. To give you an idea of how much we overconsume them, the proportion of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids, another essential oil, should be between 1:1 to 2:1. The actual consumption is actually closer to 20:1 omega-6:omega-3. We drastically overconsume foods that contain omega-6 oils—mostly seed oils--and under consume foods with omega-3 oils.
What set me off this time? I watched a podcast of a Joe Rogan interview with a non-practicing physician. The physician described the steps in the production of some seed oils. The big one, designed to get your attention, complete with raised eyebrows, condescending tones and a dose of sarcasm, was that after milling to crack the seeds and separating the components of seeds, the oils were extracted with hexane. Okay. That’s a petroleum-based solvent and it isn’t anything you’d want to consume. After reading through the technique of several seed oils manufacturing processes and patents, there is a reason that hexane is used. It evaporates at a higher rate in air than something like ethanol which can also be used. Using hexane means that it will exit the extracted oil quickly and completely and be collected in gas form for reuse. There has been no hexane of note found in food products because it will continue to evaporate until it’s completely gone well before it’s consumed. I also examined the website of one of the largest food watchdog groups and hexane isn’t on their list of concerns. On the other hand, when alcohols are used, they don’t remove as much of the oil and they need to be dried in a protracted process. That lends itself to be more expensive.
I get it. No one wants to think of the manufacturing process that includes a petroleum based product. But if you use almost any ointment, it probably contains petrolatum, a mineral spirit extract from petroleum products. Not the same chemistry for sure but they’ve been used safely for over 100 years.
But he wasn’t done with the manufacturing yet. Next were the refining, cleaning and deodorizing steps. The refining can be as simple as being moved through a series of finer and finer sieves. Big whup. The cleaning may involve heating the oil to high temperatures to further remove residues. Again, nothing unusual about that. The deodorizing is usually a steam distillation process. Not every oil uses the same process but that’s really about it. What he never stated was that the manufacturing could also include the separation of specific proportions of omega-6 fatty acids. Again, if I put a sneer on my face, make facial gestures, and imply that everything is bad, I could convince anyone that seed oils are bad. I prefer to stick to the actual science because the really tough part is getting people to change their lifestyle. Fear won’t do it or no one would ever smoke another cigarette.
What’s next? The video was comments, video clips, and charts by three purported health experts who believe that seed oils are the root cause of every health issue in the United States. I’m not going to question their credentials although what most physicians know about nutrition they had to learn on their own. I know a lot about the anatomy and physiology of the heart but I’m not going to be doing any open-heart surgery because I know enough to stay in my lane. I’ll leave completing that thought to you as the listener.
They showed a series of graphs that claimed several relationships between seed oils and obesity and morbidity. I might add that they provided no references to support the claim. One chart plotted obesity against seed oil intake over 20 or more years. There was a linear rise in obesity as seed oil consumption increased. On another slide, they plotted caloric consumption, which they showed was essentially a straight line, indicating caloric intake was unchanged over 30 years but the rate of obesity and chronic disease like heart disease and diabetes increased. Their conclusion was that seed oils all by themselves caused the increase in obesity and disease.
I’ve used a plot similar to the one they used about seed oils and obesity. I plotted ultra-processed food intake against obesity and the same linear relationship existed. Made their point better is to associate ultra-processed food with seed oil consumption. Reducing UPF intake—which I’ve repeatedly said we should do—would decrease the intake of seed oils. Hence, that would get the ratio of omega-6s to omega 3s better in balance.
The chart about caloric consumption remaining stable over 40 years is simply not true. The National Health and Nutrition Examination survey data clearly shows that physical activity has gone down and food intake has gone up which explains the increase in obesity. They haven’t gone up or down by hundreds of calories per day but an extra 100 calories per day could result in 10 pounds in a year—exactly what seems to be happening.
Two things. What they didn’t realize was that, on the chart plotting seed oil intake replacing animal fat intake from the 1850s through today, the chart clearly shows that fat intake rose from 30% of caloric intake to over 42% of caloric intake during that period. Animal or plant based, Americans eat more fat than they should. Second, they plotted the average of total caloric intake for all categories, ages, and ethnicities. If that’s broken down by categories of obesity, the intake would show a different story. The fatter a person is, the more calories they consume.
My purpose in this podcast was to clarify the seed oil issues if you’re concerned about it. Whether it’s butter and animal fat or seed oils, it all comes down to the amounts you eat as to whether it’s healthy or not. If you don’t remember anything else, just remember that omega-6 fats are essential fats that we need to live. The goal is to get to a ratio of no more than 2:1 omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids. That should be the goal to get healthy and stay healthy. That’s all the time I have for this episode. If you like this podcast, please hit the like button and tell your friends and colleagues about it. Until next time, this is Dr. Chet Zelasko saying health is a choice. Choose wisely today and every day.
Fed A Lie. Film. 2024.
Brit.med.J., 1965,1,1531-1533
AMA Intern Med. 2025;185(5):549-560. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2025.0205
