580: Why this MD avoids seed oils at all costs | Cate Shanahan, M.D.
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Seed oils. Are they really as bad as social media makes them seem? Today's guest, Dr. Kate Shanahan, is back on the show to share her point of view. And boy, it is a strong point of view indeed. Dr. Kate, a board-certified family physician and nutrition expert, has spent years studying how seed oils can negatively impact our health.

She's the author of Dark Calories and the nutrition expert behind the LA Lakers Pro Nutrition Program, which she talks more about in her previous episode, which is linked to in show notes. In today's show, we dive into all things seed oils and why Dr. Kate thinks they may be fueling chronic diseases, inflammation, and metabolic dysfunction.

Now, before we jump in, I want to gently remind you that our goal is to bring you conversations with thought leaders so that you can make informed choices about your health. Dr. Kate is deeply passionate in her views and is fired up about improving the American diet. I encourage you, even if you find yourself disagreeing, to proceed with an open mind. Do I try to avoid seed oils? Yes. Will I never have a French fry again? No. So look, take what resonates and feel empowered to make the best decisions for you. Let's get to it.

So to recap, could you give us a primer on the hateful eight? The hateful eight are seed oils that I've identified as the most problematic substances in the food supply. So there's a lot of science behind this list.

And the list includes eight seed oils. They're all seeds. And they are, there's three Cs to start with, corn, canola, cottonseed, three Ss, soy, sunflower, safflower. And then there's rice bran and grapeseed. So that's the eight. And if you notice what's not on the list are some other seeds like sesame seed oil's not on there.

And peanut oil is not on that list. And that is actually really important. So the hateful eight, actually, there's a lot of science that, you know, it's taken me many years to develop the rationale that I need to explain this in the shortest possible timeframe of how I picked those eight without going in deep into the chemistry. But there is a lot of chemistry behind this and a lot of science behind

So when anybody's talking about seed oils, if they don't specifically say the hateful eight, then it's not clear what exactly their understanding of this is. So the reason that these eight are selected has to do with the fact that they are both high in polyunsaturates and the crude oil is inactive.

inedible. You cannot consume crude soy or crude canola or crude cottonseed oil or even crude sunflower oil is not safe for human or animal consumption period. And that is unique. That's why they are uniquely toxic. There's nothing else in the food supply that at any point in its life cycle is

is toxic. There's nothing like that. And that is just absolutely irresponsible for anyone talking about seed oils. And now I'm talking about the people in academia who are promoting them as heart healthy to do so because they start out after you squeeze the oil from soy or canola. And I'm citing those because those are the two most commonly found in the United States food supply. So

So you squeeze the oil under high heat and pressure, even if you do not use hexane. That oil is inedible, cannot be consumed. And it requires extensive factory refining. And that factory refining removes many of the toxins, but it also removes almost all of the other nutrients.

We're talking about minerals, we're talking about vitamins, and then we're talking about something very, very important, which are the stabilizing factors that keep that oil from oxidizing further while it's in the bottle. So without those stabilizing factors, the oils as they leave the factory are really truly a chemistry set. They are a slow motion oxidation reaction chamber.

And continued oxidation of those polyunsaturated fatty acids continues to develop new toxins. New toxins form even before you open that bottle.

And then when you do open it or expose it to light or heat, more toxins form. And so in the end, what happens is like, let's say you go to a restaurant and you're sitting down to enjoy some French fries. The amount of toxin in one single French fry is so significant that it equates to the toxicity of smoking an entire cigarette. So one French fry is

is equivalent to the toxicity of smoking an entire cigarette. And a pack of fries or a five-ounce serving of fries is the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes. So a couple points I want to clarify. So you said crude.

When I hear crude and oil, I tend to think of gasoline. How do you define crude as it relates to canola oil? Yeah, so that's the industry term. And it really just means the first batch of oil that you've extracted. Now, we consume crude olive oil all the time. We call it extra virgin because olive oil in its crude form...

does not need refining. And that's the difference between oils that are toxic and oils that are healthy. The oils that are toxic, they require refining, and that's how I've defined the hateful eight. But it's not just that they require refining. It's also that they are high in polyunsaturates because there are other oils that are refined that are not quite so toxic.

Like, for example, palm oil and refined palm oil is not one of the hateful eight because the fatty acids there are more stable and it's not quite as bad of a chemistry experiment. It's not heathenic.

healthy. It's not a good oil. It's not something I promote, refined palm oil. Same with refined peanut or refined coconut or even refined avocado. These refined oils are all problematic, but they're not anywhere near as toxic as the hateful eight. So it sounds like it's the processing of the oil that creates the toxicity that

which causes the oxidative stress, which we believe to be so harmful. Is that correct? It's the processing, but it's also the innate chemistry because you can process your coconut oil properly

And it's not toxic because the innate chemistry of coconut oil is highly saturated. So this is why the chemistry so matters. And, you know, a lot of folks don't want to hear about the chemistry, but you don't have to if you just memorize my list. But

you really, if you want to consider yourself like an expert or an influencer, you do need to understand these chemical details. Saturated fat is stable. It will not deteriorate into toxins. But the hay folate seed oils have so much polyunsaturated fatty acid that they are unstable and they do degrade and deteriorate into different molecules that were, that nature didn't make. And those molecules have toxic properties. And in addition to

to the toxins in there, there is no antioxidant, no nutrient. There's a lot of other stuff missing, like all the phospholipids, the cell membranes, the phytonutrients. Those have all been removed from the refined oils. So I would say no one's going to argue that French fries fried in vegetable oil are healthy. Definitely not. I don't think anyone's going to argue that. But I think that what I want to dig into here is

What happens if you equate eating French fries, fried and vegetable oil to smoking a cigarette? What's happening in the body when you consume the French fries, fried and vegetable oil? What does that look like in the body? How is that going to, for those who are doing, you know, extensive lab work every six months, like how's that going to show up?

in someone's labs. What does this look like? So these oils are actually responsible for all of the lab abnormalities that we associate with metabolic disease, inflammatory disease, degenerative disease, autoimmune disorders, and so on. So essentially, if something, in your view, anything that is out of whack is potentially due to consumption of hateful-ate seed oils.

It's something we should look at or rule out. Let's put it a different way. If you are consuming these hateful eight seed oils, that is 80% of your problem. Wow.

It's not like a rule out or a possibility. It would be as if to say a person with asthma who is a two-pack-a-day cigarette smoker and has been for decades, if they have asthma or coronary COPD or coronary heart disease or get strokes or if they have a health problem, you know that quitting smoking is going to help resolve that

health problem, right? It's very much the same. And in fact, it's, I would argue, worse. And so on that note, you mentioned the 80%. So makes me think of the 80-20 rule, which many people follow, including myself. So let's just say I'm pretty healthy. I'm doing all the right things. And 80% of the time I'm eating whole foods. I'm avoiding seed oils. But you know, 20% of the time, you know, maybe I like French fries. Maybe I, you know, I like to eat out and, and

even though there are many better options in dining. Like there are fantastic restaurants. There's the seed oil app. There's true food kitchen. There's lots of great places don't have, we were talking about in Orlando. There's a great taco place, a hunger street. There's Miami. We've got Elastica. We've got cruise kitchen. There's Los Felix. There's a new burger. Like it's happening. Like this movement's happening. With that said, it's still difficult. So to my question, the 80, 20 rule, in your view, are we overreacting?

Okay. No. Oh, wow. That was a quick no. No, I mean, definitely not. Like, so let's say you're, you know, a two pack a day smoker. And so 80% of the time, is it okay to smoke those two packs on 80 on 20% of the days? Well, I don't think anyone in their right mind would say, oh, yeah, no, that's not going to hurt you.

it's proportionate, right? So if you've cut out 80%, then that will help a lot. It will. I'm not gonna say you're not doing yourself any good, but you still have that 20% is dragging you down. Don't shoot the messenger here. I didn't put the seed oils in the food supply, right? - No. - Right? So people are like, "Well, I can't do that. That's impossible."

Right. It's very, very difficult. I barely ever go out to eat now because I don't want to expose myself to that garbage. And it's just the world is now changing.

an unhealthy world that we live in. And I think it's very important to be angry at the right person, right? I want to talk about who are the people that are doing this to us? Who made this world that is so difficult to be healthy in? You want to talk about that? Well, I think, look, it's complex. We should talk about it, but I also don't want to spend too much time in the past and rather in the future. And I think it's

If I were to, a lot of it's subsidies and... Well, this is the present. This is the present because it's still happening now, right? Like, so yeah, so the subsidies are there.

And Ancel Keys and how we interpreted that study? It is only Ancel Keys. It is only the American Heart Association. And I think it's important to understand that the American Heart Association is still in charge of the nutrition conversation. They still educate dieticians and doctors to this very day.

Right. So this is not history. This is not like, oh, well, they made mistakes. Mistakes were made. You know, let's just move on. We can't move on until the American Heart Association is held accountable for the crimes that they have committed against humanity, because they're

The conversation will not change until the American health care system stops recommending these supposedly heart healthy oils as toxic. Jason, I don't know if you have seen any of the debunkers out there who are so self-righteous and so self-assured saying this is toxic.

The seed oil, you know, haters are conspiracy theorists, that there's no science behind this, that it's just like a trend. That is absolutely wrong. We were all lied to.

So this is not a conspiracy theory. The American Heart Association never had any evidence before they proclaimed these oils were heart healthy. And likewise, this is very related. Anybody who's afraid of cholesterol, who is afraid of their cholesterol levels, that is related to this conversation. Do you know how? Tell us. Because these heart healthy oils are...

supposedly heart healthy because they lower our cholesterol levels, you see? So those two concepts of cholesterol causing heart attacks and seed oils being healthy are commingled. You cannot separate them. And when the American Heart Association or your cardiologist tells you your cholesterol is high, that is related to this conversation. That is related to his ignorance around the toxicity of the hateful eight oils. And that is the reason why

The congressmen and the people who support these special interests don't know what they are doing by giving them these subsidies. You see, so if we expose this lie, until we expose this lie and unravel the source of this totally deadly concept that cholesterol is the cause of heart disease,

You must lower cholesterol. Saturated fat is a problem. Those are all wrong concepts. Until we unravel that from...

medical thinking. And we have over a million doctors in this country. And we have more than 10, 20 million ancillary health professionals who are all trained in this wrong way of thinking that comes from Ancel Keys and the American Heart Association. So that, so we can't keep saying that that is ancient history and we've got to move on. So are you with me on that? I am, but I do think with regards to cholesterol, I do think many people

cardiologists or quote-unquote longevity doctors leading this conversation have broken through to the mainstream and have moved on from cholesterol and there seems to be consensus that ApoB, LP little a those markers are paramount

in deciphering whether one has risk as it relates to cardiovascular disease and cholesterol probably not as important. I do think the world is moving. I think people like Peter, but ApoB is... If somebody's saying ApoB is a problem, Jason, they're saying LDL cholesterol is a problem, right? Because ApoB is the lipoprotein that is on LDL cholesterol.

It's also on a number of other particles. But that is somebody who's not understanding the root cause. I've got to say that. The root cause is not cholesterol. Nature did not make a mistake in creating ApoB cholesterol.

That is just, we got to get that straight. And we got to understand that the root cause of arteriosclerotic disease is oxidation and oxidative stress. I'm saying ApoB isn't necessarily the cause of cardiovascular disease. What I'm saying is...

many people would say that APOB, high APOB, is something, if you are concerned about cardiovascular disease, you need to watch that. It is an indicator that something may be wrong. Yes, I would agree that it could be, but it's really like, let's just tell us what it really is. If you're a cardiologist, you're going to

And I'll, you're gonna look at APOB. You're gonna do a clearly scan. And I think a clearly scan is a three, the MRI of the heart to see if there's blockage. I think the scan is the gold standard to see what like what's going on.

The 3D MRI of the heart. Yeah, this is a huge rabbit hole. And, you know, I would say that. I don't want to spend too much time. Exactly. But this is the problem. So this is why this is relevant. Because all of medical science has been distorted because they don't grasp the true root cause as being oxidative stress. Right?

We've been forced by the American Heart Association to deny the reality of what's actually causing these diseases and to create all these little rabbit, each one is a different rabbit hole of misunderstanding that has been created because they're not allowed to just say oxidative stress is the cause.

the primary root cause. And they have to come up with all these other ways by which cholesterol or saturated fat or ApoB can be a problem. I don't look, I don't, I don't disagree. I, you know, I think if you look at the trends, we're consuming less meat, we're consuming more processed foods, we're consuming more seed oils than ever. And then you look at the skyrocketing rates of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease. So I think, I think it's, I think there's something there.

I do. And I think the question, and personally, for what it's worth, like I try to avoid seed oils. I do. But I think I want to get, but just to dial it back for a second.

I think I want to still get into like oxidative stress and you know what, let me, let me pause on the oxidative stress. Something you talked about. They're so divisive. Why do you think seed oils are so divisive? I can't quite understand.

figure that out? Well, you know, I mean, that's a really good question. And I mean, I just have to say it's because we have been lied to about their effects. And so there are people who don't know that

and who won't accept that they were miseducated. And that is the majority of health professionals, the majority of dieticians, the majority of nutritionists, the majority of human beings walking on the planet have heard that cholesterol is a killer since we were little. And it's simply not true, right? So, but the reason it's divisive is because it's,

It's, you know, this is near and dear to our hearts, literally, right? Like it's people who are, I guess, well, I talk about this in Dark Calories. You do. I'll hold up the book. Fascinating book. Thank you. I think maybe it's a lot of it comes down to this

psychological quirk called the Dunning-Kruger effect. And that is, two psychologists coined this term to describe somebody who's an expert in one field thinks that they know more than they do about other fields because they're an expert in one field, right? And so this applies in medicine and all of healthcare because doctors do. We learn a ton of very important stuff about how the human body works, right?

But we can't get our heads wrapped around the idea that maybe we don't learn the truth or enough about nutrition and diet and particularly fats.

And so when you see, like, when people are just making these claims out there, part of it is how the argument has been presented. Like, there's a lot of people out there on social media saying seed oils are toxic, as if they are the expert in it and not referring to any other science, right? And so when you now put yourself in the shoes of a dietician,

And you're watching this person who's like, you know, an influencer, very popular, very attractive, makes a lot of engaging content.

And they're just saying that, you know, flat out you're wrong, right? You went to school, you paid a lot of money for education, and every single day you are teaching people based on principles that you believe to be true. And all these influencers are out there saying that you are wrong. Just put yourself in their shoes for a minute. That's going to create a lot of friction, right? Sure. Both sides are definitely guilty of that, for sure.

100% because neither one is really listening to the other. And here I am, I feel like I'm trying to communicate to both sides. Like, look, dieticians, our heart is in the right place. We've just been lied to. And look, influencers, you guys are, you get it, but you can't pretend like you're the expert in the science. You've got to defer to someone who actually is a scientist. Right?

Right. And if it's not going to be me, then it should be some of the people that have been that, you know, I've been talking about for years who have also been I mean, who've been contributing important information that medical science ignores. This podcast is brought to you in part by Stash. Saving and investing can feel impossible, but with Stash, it's not just a reality. It's easy.

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This is a paid client endorsement, not representative of all clients and not a guarantee. Investment advisory services offered by Stash Investments LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. Investing involves risk. Offer is subject to terms and conditions. A couple of things to unpack there. One would think a reasonable person would say, hey, you know, science has had a history of changing and evolving points of view. And if this is something that maybe we were wrong on, maybe...

could be hurting us in a significant way, maybe not so bad to avoid it. And no downside in avoiding it. If I can remove something from my life or maybe try to avoid it when I can, is avoiding french fries really a terrible thing or avoiding vegetable oil really a terrible thing?

Probably not. And if I'm so I kind of think there's there's a there's a middle ground for most people. I don't see the point of people who are so adamant about saying no canola oil is great and it's hard health. I just don't. I think the right approach is maybe, you know, hey, you know, maybe it's not so great. I think we'd all agree French fries and canola oil not good.

maybe there's something here. Maybe we should just look at it. What's the downside of just saying maybe we should deploy some resources to look at it? Yeah, exactly. Right. And why isn't that happening? Well, you know, why

Why doesn't that happen in anywhere, right? It doesn't happen in politics. It doesn't happen in so many things. It's human nature to just dig your heels in unless you've got like a peacemaker or a diplomat or something like that. And, you know, I don't know how to... I'm trying my best to be that peacemaker. You're making the rounds and you've written extensively on this for years. I think being...

Anti-seed oil is becoming a little bit in vogue for better or for worse in our world. I think it has legs. I think it's becoming on trend. With that said, I want to come back to the nuts and bolts, which is the science, which you cited. In your view, what is the best science, the best study out there that we're not paying attention to, isn't commanding science?

you know, news outlets to cover the science like we'd expect. Like what's sitting out there that we're not...

I think it's a simple fact that the oils contain toxins when they leave the factory and that it's not hexane. So like a lot of folks are fixated on the fact that, yeah, a lot of soy oil is extracted with hexane, but the hexane isn't the toxin of interest here. Hexane is not good for you, obviously, but that is not really the issue. So hexane can be removed. A lot of hexane is volatile, so it is...

not present in significant amounts and it's not one of these multiplier toxins. So the problem is that the oils contain toxins that will turn around and attack the polyunsaturated fatty acids.

and generate more toxins. So it is a, truly, it's a chemistry set. And then what else is being missed? There's a lot of science that's being overlooked. It's really, you know, a morass of folks overlooking the toxicity. They're overlooking the significance of some key human trials that have been done over the past decades. For example, the fact that

The many human trials showing that, well, a handful, sorry, not many, small handful of human trials showing that if you want to understand how these oils affect the human body, you can't do a two-week study or a five-week study or even a one-year study. You've got to go for at least three years.

Because what happens is the continual onslaught of toxins changes our body chemistry. You know, like if you want to understand cigarette smoking, how does that affect the body? You can't put people on, you know, in a smoking chamber for two weeks and expect to see a bunch of cancers develop.

But that's basically what we're doing with the seed oils where we're saying, well, we've done this 12-week study or this even one-year study, and we didn't see the particular marker that we were looking for happen. So what is the good study? So many flaws in that, that it would take an entire podcast just to unpack the flaws in that one sentence I just gave you. A couple of follow-ups. Has there been any study, in your view, whether...

whether it's animal or human, that you think is the best we've got at the moment. So in what realm? Like, are we talking about the toxicology? Are we talking about the... That would support our thesis that seed oils are toxic and harmful and that we should not consume them. I would have to say that like almost every study I look at supports that thesis.

Right. It's not like we have one good one. We have innumerable. So, for example, like often the human trials, everybody wants to focus on the human trials. So let's just touch on those for a second. Right. Which are like very difficult to do. It's ridiculous to say that maybe you'll agree with me on this one. I cannot think of anything in nutrition that was discovered through a randomized double blind experiment.

human clinical trial. Can you? No, I think the challenge we all have when it comes to nutrition is it's like almost impossible to do a bulletproof study where we isolate a large group of people over a certain period of time and we control everything they eat over. That's just, that's the issue. Well, yeah, the issue is that it's a frankly anti-intellectual approach

pursuit. Because if you're doing a randomized double-blind placebo, you can only modulate one variable at a time, or you've got too many variables.

Maybe you could do two or three, but there are how many vitamins, how many minerals, how many different components of the human body, of the human diet? It is an absolutely absurd suggestion to even just say that the only way you can prove anything of value in nutrition is to use a randomized human clinical trial. That is so anti-science.

There are numerous forms of science that we need to be paying attention to, and those are generally being ignored. So, you know, there's this evidentiary pyramid a lot of people like to talk about where there's this so-called hierarchy of evidence, and it's a pyramid-shaped diagram. At the bottom, you have, like, fundamental principles of chemistry, and then above that, you have

like in vitro studies of cells. And then above that, you have like animal studies. And then above that, you have like observational human studies. And then above that, you have, you know, randomized clinical trials. And it's at the peak of the pyramid there, people have misinterpreted this pyramid to say that that is the best kind, the gold standard study. That is not what that pyramid is about.

That pyramid is about like the importance and the relative amount of studies in a given like realm. We need to have a foundation of our pyramid that is based in rock solid principles of balance.

basic chemistry and biology and cell physiology. We can't start at the top of the pyramid and start asking questions. There has to be some logic to the questions that we ask. And that is what's been missing from the nutrition conversation for 70 years, ever since the American Heart Association started using epidemiology as the principal tool by which they would understand what a healthy diet looks like.

statisticians can't tell us what a healthy diet looks like. That is just absolutely, you know, asinine. I'm sorry for the language. No, look, I think epidemiology, as it relates to nutrition, I think of the world where genetics plays a significant role. I've done all the testing. I do all the things. I've done three by four genetics. I've done the

the Boston heart, like I absorb certain nutrients differently than other people. And I think bioindividuality is real. So I'm with you there. My question, look, I think in 2025, there are going to be a lot of changes as it relates to legislation, subsidies. If you could, let's just, if you had unlimited resources,

and the ability to shine a light to anything as it relates to this conversation. Like how would you deploy those resources? How would you convince the naysayers, if you will, whether it's the American Heart Association or the poorly informed influencer or dietician who is so pro-canola oil, you have the opportunity of a lifetime, unlimited resources to convince these people

What would you do? What would you say? Well, now I'm a kid in a candy store because there's so many things I'd like to do. But OK, let's start with the brass tacks. Let's just make people healthy. Right. So I would say that follow the kind of diet that I recommend in all of my books, which is all related. You know, I want people off seed oils to minimize their refined flours and sugars.

to follow what I call the four pillars of a human diet, get fresh food, get fermented and sprouted food, eat the whole animal, get your organ meats, get your meat on the bone, optimal diet, right? Optimal diet. If we can't do some of those things, we can talk about that later. But let's do a study where we optimize people's diets according to the principles of

science the way I see it. And then let's do whatever the American Heart Association says is their heart healthy diet. Let's do MyPlate where you have less than 10% saturated fat, lots of seed oils, almost no sources of phospholipids or cholesterol, almost no whole foods. The MyPlate, that's what the dieticians have been promoting for at least 10 years now.

So let's put those two head to head in a group of people and go for, you know, six months, a year, significant period of time. And let's start out with just a cross section of the population where we have people who are overweight. The average person is nearly obese today. So let's start with those folks. And the average person in their 50s, say, has at least one chronic disease. Many people have allergies. They have diabetes.

digestive problems, they have food intolerances, they've got autoimmune disorders. Let's just take this cross-section of the country because we have unlimited funds here. Let's put a million people on these two test diets and let's see at the end of six months, a year, who is on fewer meds than they started. Look, I'm with you. And who knows, this may be in the cards in 2025. Yeah.

Let's do a GoFundMe, make it happen. Look, we've had Marty Makery on this podcast. I know we know a lot of the same people and he's nominated to lead the FDA. And, you know, so there's a lot. Who knows? I think anything's possible. Another thing I want to come back to get your point of view on as it relates to oxidative stress and what gets so wrong internally with people when they're consuming seed oils, omega-6 versus omega-3 ratio.

And within functional medicine, it's something you always pay attention to. You know, you want you don't want your omega six to omega three ratio to be too imbalanced, but you've got a high level of omega sixes to omega threes or consuming too much linoleic acid. Can we spend a moment on that? Yeah.

Yeah, so that is important. Like you want to be, you want to get enough of the omega-3s in your diet and you don't want to be imbalanced, right? I don't see it as anywhere near as important as the oxidative stress issue. It's a different issue. You know, it's like, you also want to have all your other vitamins, right? You want to, you want to get enough protein in your diet, right? You want to, you know, get all the minerals in your diet, right? So it's one of those other

other elements of a balanced diet and it's very important. But I think it's gone, there's been a big misunderstanding in the anti-seed oil conversation that it's all about this ratio and that is not true. And I think if that's where the conversation is,

I see the conversation kind of starting to pivot from that. That's where it's been, frankly, Jason. I don't know if you noticed that or if that's what you believe, but that's where it has been for a long time. And that's where I've been trying to take it away from that for a long time, because that isn't correct. It's not all about the ratio. It's not that omega-3. Do you know omega-3 has no ability to directly fight inflammation? No.

The PhDs and MDs who are talking about omega-3s, they are using the term as if they think it has some antioxidant property. But that is incorrect. These are highly polyunsaturated fatty acids that will oxidize, just like the linoleic acid will oxidize. And in fact, because they have more double bonds...

they will oxidize more quickly. So that's why I say it's adding fuel to the fire. So, and again. But just to be clear here, eat the fish, like eat your wild fish. Like you want to eat your salmon, your sardine, your smash, your sardines, mackerel, anchovies, salmon and herring. Eat the fish. Again, like get it from real food. Exactly. Just to clarify. I don't want people freaking out and saying, oh, omega-3, like eat the fish.

Right. Absolutely. No, like the, you know, but to try to correct oxidative stress by supplementing with an easily oxidized omega fatty acid, that's not going to help you. What does the fish have that's different? Well, all of those many, many nutrients. I mean, you know, fish has got protein, it's got minerals, it's got many, many vitamins, it's got phospholipids, it's got cholesterol, it's got lecithin, it's got so many things that our bodies need to actually help

fight inflammation right so our body has this whole arsenal of naturally occurring anti-inflammatory enzymes and compounds that it makes but it can't do it if we're not well nourished so whole food is part of the solution so i know i've referenced french fries and vegetable oil uh quite a few times uh

That's like obvious. I will call out Elastica here in Miami, our good friend, Chef Joe Anthony does the French fries in non-seed oil. He so which is very exciting. So thumbs up. And then there's another place in Miami, Smash Brothers just opened. They do it in tallow oil. So like I do think like French fries, you know, maybe there's some change there. But with that said, OK, everyone gets French fries and vegetable oil. What are some unsuspecting things?

places where maybe not so obvious that the hateful eight are lingering. So on the topic of restaurants, many fancy sit-down restaurants are giving you some form of a seed oil instead of olive oil, instead of butter. Many of the sauces like the aiolis, they're made with a soy oil or an olive oil blend that's 1% olive oil, 99% soy oil. Many of the restaurants have their, their, uh,

par-cooked. They're vegetables and instead of actual butter, they will use some sort of a butter oil. Like you can buy this thing from restaurant supply depots called butter oil and it's soy oil that's flavored to taste like butter. It's horrifying. What if you go to a restaurant depot? It's horrifying. So the fancy sit-down restaurants are going to give you about 30% of the calories you're going to eat are going to be coming from soy oil. So that's whether you're eating...

It's probably hard if you're doing carnivore. That's like the one of the great things about a carnivore diet is that it takes you away from a lot of these foods that are so saturated because they absorb the oils, right? The alerts and the absorptive starches. So restaurants and then going to grocery stores, we have...

80% of, somewhere around 80, it might even be higher, 85% of the products with an ingredients label will contain a seed oil, except for just like the pure sugar, like sodas and stuff like that, not counting that category. But so we're talking about your salad dressings, right? You want to be healthy. You want to have a salad. So your Italian dressing, your ranch dressing, that's going to have seed oils included.

The frozen foods, you know, the vegan frozen foods, the vegetarian frozen foods, the supposedly healthy, healthy choice brands of frozen dinners and sides, that's going to have lots of seed oils in it. Of course, the baked goods, obviously the other

The chips, crackers, a lot of folks think saltines are healthy. A lot of people I've spoken to think saltine crackers are healthy, but those are going to have the seed oils in them. Mayonnaise, if I didn't say that, America's most popular. You got to read the labels. And I would say I'm an optimist. You got, there are more brands in groceries. So like you mentioned mayonnaise and dressing. So like Primal Kitchen, Marxist and like no seed oils. Amazing. Like we're getting better.

but you got to read the labels. Yes, exactly. And you can also just go by price, right? It costs more to use an oil that's not subsidized by the government, that's not extracted with maximal efficiency, right? The healthier oils can only grow in limited climates. Olive oil can only grow in a Mediterranean climate. There's just these restrictions on where you can grow the healthy oils. You can only grow coconut oil in a tropical climate, same with avocado oil.

But soy and corn and canola, they can grow in, you know, so many different climates. They can grow in the tropics. They can grow in a temperate climate. They can grow in the Midwest. They can grow all throughout Europe. Right. So that is the problem is that we're trying to just fill people up on calories without paying attention to all the other nutrients that.

are missing when the policymakers are so proud of the fact that we've been able to export so much food and feed the world and so on. They're just looking at calories. That's not the end of the story. And that's been the problem is that we've mostly focused on

calories and macros for the past 70 years. So you've mentioned olive oil, avocado oil. What else is on your favorite oil list that we should be? Yeah, I have my favorite five that I keep in my house all the time. That's butter, olive oil, peanut oil, coconut oil, and sesame oil. I don't actually love avocado oil myself personally, but it is on the good list, right? Because of the fact that it is

low in polyunsaturates. But really to be healthy, it must be the unrefined avocado oil. So it's going to have a strong flavor. So

So if you've been getting the refined avocado oil, there's a lot of missing nutrients there. And I wouldn't recommend that as a healthy. I actually have three categories of oil, Jason. There's the healthy oil that I recommend my favorite five. And in dark calories, I list out the delightful dozen that also includes tallow and lard. I personally don't cook with those. I don't have a good source here. There's

There's a bunch of others. And then there's the hateful eight. And in the middle is this category I call okay, but not great. They're basically the empty calories of the fat world. And that's your refined coconut, your refined avocado, and

and the other refined oils that are, that are lower in the polyunsaturated fatty acids. So they're not going to be toxic, but they also, because of the refining have very, have inadequate nutrition to support human health. Yeah. I can't do personally coconut oil because of the C16 fatty acid. My body does not respond well to that. So I can do olive oil all day. Uh, yeah. So, um, uh,

Obviously, these are recommendations that are based on the chemistry, not the individual biology. Sure, sure. Understood. Appreciate the distinction there.

We covered a lot today. Anything we didn't cover that you'd like to touch on before we wrap or leave our audience with any words of wisdom? Maybe I would like to ask you, was there something in the book that you hadn't heard before? I think what's interesting to me is oxidative stress.

And we don't, what you tend to see on social media for better or for worse is just these conversations of absolutes.

Seed oils are terrible. They're the devil. Seed oils are totally fine. Canola oil is fine. And then you see a lot of, well, it's the omega-6 or it's hexane. It's highly, you're eating gasoline and we're not really, we tend to speak in hyperbole. Yeah. It was very strong incendiary points of view around these topics. Yeah.

And what I like, look, you have a strong point of view without question, but I like the focus on science and getting in talking more about oxidative stress because I believe that all medical professionals would agree that oxidative stress is not good. That is true. This idea that we're consuming ungodly amounts of this medicine.

And there is a strong link to oxidative stress. Whether you believe that or not, it's worth exploring further and not dismissing. And I think something we've learned about science is generally not a good thing to just like dismiss another point of view that you may not agree with.

And that science is continually evolving. It's not a noun. It's a verb. Yeah, I love that. And I guess what I would like to say is that, say about what you just said, is that that opens the door, right? The conversation around oxidative stress is just the beginning. Because if I am right,

And these oils do promote oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is pretty well accepted to be playing a key role in literally every disease process, right? I don't know.

If you're aware of that. Yes. A hundred percent. And you can't argue with like the diabetes, the cardiovascular disease, the obesity epidemic that we're all facing. So like you kind of got to like acknowledge something's wildly wrong. Yeah. And so that opens the door to reframing nutrition science. And that is what dark calories takes a big stab at. One of the things that you and I didn't talk about and, um,

I'm curious if you like what you thought about this, if you read this part was the idea that oxidative stress drives insulin resistance and the way that the seed oils are changing the chemistry of our bodies.

alters our metabolism so that we become insulin resistant. And insulin resistance is not a disease of excessive carbohydrates and insulin toxicity. I don't believe that at all. Insulin resistance is a disease of energy production alterations where we can't use our own body fat. And so we get hungry between meals and that's why we overeat.

And that changes the whole conversation around ultra processed foods too, because folks are talking about how ultra processed foods are addicting.

I don't think they taste really all that good. And, you know, I think real food tastes better. I wouldn't say they're addicting. I would say people are addicted to them, not for their taste, but for the fact that they cannot use their own body fat for energy. So they're addicted to food, to outside energy sources for fuel. And that is why we eat so much ultra processed food. Yes.

Agreed. Well, thank you so much. Fascinating. I encourage everyone to pick up the book Dark Calories. And I do, I just want to do it again. I know we've gone a little overkill on restaurants, but I do want to make a point of calling out the restaurants that are doing the right thing. So in Miami, True Food Kitchen,

which is national. I love what they're doing. It's fantastic. It's our kids' favorite place to eat. No seed oils, and they've been doing this for years. True Food Kitchen, amazing, safe, national. Sweetgreen's catching up there.

Here in Miami, Los Felix, Cruise, Elastica, Smash Brothers, all seed oil-free, amazing. And then in your neck of the woods, Orlando, Hunger Street, tacos. I'm excited to go. And Four Rivers. While you're up here, there's another restaurant, Four Rivers. They've got four locations and they use like a lot of really high quality meats to do barbecue. It's like...

southern style stuff. I'm there. So it's happening. You know, we still have a long way to go with restaurants, but it's happening. But Kate, always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for this conversation today.