[oramit]

Every 5 years or so a new food bogeyman appears and all the fitness/diet influencers hop on the bandwagon and blame every ill on it. Seeds Oils are just the most recent of these memes pushed by the power of group think as opposed to the power of the evidence. I think only the carnivore diet people are more out of touch right now...

I really wish there was a magic bullet to the obesity epidemic. An ingredient we can just stop using, or a diet that will fix all our problems - but that's just not realistic. The evidence points to this being a messy multivariate problem that extends beyond just diet to things like lifestyle, poverty, and cultural norms.

It's so much easier to believe that "with this one trick" we can fix everything but when has that ever worked? Thanks to the author for writing this up.

[willmadden]

There is a clear carcinogenic effect of processed seed oils in rodents. Mechanistically they break down into compounds that are harmful. It's far worse when the seed oil is reused in restaurants.

If you want to wait for conclusive evidence when all of the studies are financed by the companies that earn revenue from processed seed oil, be my guest.

[Klonoar]

Link an actual study with verifiable results, otherwise you’re just another commenter shouting into the void.

[nradov]

The evidence doesn't seem clear.

https://davissciencesays.ucdavis.edu/blog/what-does-science-...

[washadjeffmad]

Just for awareness, rodents used in research are genetically engineered to develop tumors whose rates and prevalence are well understood. When we do research, we study the changes and composition of the tumors, among other effects.

The rats will "get cancer" either way. How else would we know whether something has a positive or negative effect on tumor growth?

[fuzzfactor]

>new food bogeyman

Nothing new, but Citric Acid consumption is skyrocketing in parallel to other more well-recognized commodities involved in the food processing industry:

https://www.imarcgroup.com/global-citric-acid-market

I don't know if flying under the radar makes it more or less of a boogeyman but I'm not a very happy camper with having added citric acid in every meal and snack.

Chemically being "tribasic", citric can absorb up to 3 times the alkalinity per molecule compared to the acetic acid (vinegar) it is often used as a substitute for. That doesn't mean 3x is always the ultimate ratio if all the acidity were to be neutralized either in vitro or in vivo. Even if the same number or molecules were substituted. Remember pH IS NOT acidity. They are just closely related. An excess of citric can be added without lowering the pH as uncomfortably as an excess of acetic, so you would never know without careful multi-endpoint titration vs pH measurement response.

Now there may be some basis in fact underlying a few ultimately bogus phobias, but you should probably be careful what you consume whether as a food, drink, or a more potent concentrated ingredient like purified liquids or even crystallized solids. Everything which can have toxic effects does have a different toxicity profile.

Not surprisingly, there's a song about the boogie man relative to what toxins you consume:

"I was lying in bed late one night

Had my eyes almost closed I was feeling alright

Looked to the East, looked to the West

Yonder come the Boogie Man doin his best"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj_lZ4hkJd8

[Turing_Machine]

Yes, I remember when movie popcorn was the demonic food of the day.

Now, no one is going to argue that an all-movie-popcorn diet would be healthy, especially with the fake "butter", but realistically how much movie popcorn do people eat?

According to Gallup, the average American goes to the movies about 1.4 times a year. Not enough for the popcorn to have any measurable effect at all, I reckon.

And now I'm hungry for popcorn. Going to make some. :-)