The Hateful 8 Seed Oils: The Truth Behind the Labels

Understanding the “hateful 8” seed oils is crucial for anyone seeking to improve their health and prevent chronic diseases. These oils include canola, corn, cottonseed, soybean, sunflower, safflower, grapeseed, and rice bran oils. Many people on social media say that saying seed oils “are terrible for you” is just fear mongering, which is what the processed food industry wants you to believe. These oils are commonly found in ultra processed foods because they are cheap and act as a preservative.

Seed oils are full of toxins (in high concentrations) when they leave the factory (even if they say organic). These toxins act as accelerants and change other chemicals found in the oil (polyunsaturated fatty acids) into toxins so when we cook with them, they attack the nutrients found in our food. When we eat them, these toxins attack our gut, our liver, etc. For example, bottles of expeller-pressed canola oil contain anywhere from 0.6%-5.2% unnatural fatty acid molecules that are potentially toxic. That percentage was not found in the seed itself but is there because of what happens to get the oil out of the seed. Seed oils are extremely processed and go through several steps to be made, the process is so harsh and damaging that it creates toxins.

These oils also deplete our bodies of antioxidants (vitamin E, C). When your body is depleted of antioxidants nothing can work right and this is where you can start getting diseases (especially inflammatory diseases like asthma, autoimmune diseases, degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, and metabolic diseases). Seed oils change our metabolism so that we can’t burn our own body fat, we feel like we have to eat more often, and we crave sugar. Seed oils make it so we cannot burn our own body fat because they actually change the composition of it chemically. They make our body fat more polysaturated (more liquidly) that changes the composition of our fat (how it looks and feels), it also reduces our body’s ability to make collagen (and both of these things can cause cellulite).

So, what should you be cooking your food in? Virgin olive oil, grass-fed butter, tallow from grass-fed beef, lard from small family farms, and virgin coconut oil. We want them to be unrefined (virgin) because they are better quality and have nutrients in them.

In the US most people consume about 30-40 grams of seed oil per day. Let’s say you are going to strictly eat corn oil for your 40 grams one day, this would equate to anywhere from 40-80 ears of corn (depending on the oil content in each ear.)

The Hateful Eight:

-Canola oil

-Corn oil

-Cottonseed oil

-Soybean oil

-Sunflower oil

-Safflower oil

-Grapeseed oil

-Rice bran oil

Seed oil alternatives:

-Extra virgin olive oil, best for low to medium-heat cooking, dressing, and drizzling over foods

-Coconut oil, best for medium to high-heat cooking and baking

-Avocado oil, high-heat cooking, sauteing, and grilling

-Grass-fed butter or ghee, best for cooking, baking, and adding flavor to different dishes

-Tallow, best for high-heat cooking and frying