What even is a seed oil and why should I care?

What even is a seed oil and why should I care? 

If you spend any time online you’re probably aware of the obsession over seed oils in our diets. It's important to note that seed oils are not inherently bad for you, but they have been generally demonized by the health community. 

Here are the two main reasons they pose a risk to your overall health:

1. The way that they are processed 
2. Their composition of inflammatory fatty acids

Obtaining oil from seeds is simple in theory, you harvest the seed, crush the seed, and there you have the oil!

But in reality, most seed oils like canola oil are processed further than that. When large quantities of seeds are crushed at a time it is difficult to extract all of the oil, which is why solvents like hexane are introduced to the process. The worst type of seed oil is one that is processed with a toxic solvent like hexane. When heated up, hexane helps draw out all remaining oil that didn’t immediately ooze out during the crushing process. Sounds convenient right? Well it is for the company that's creating the oil, but not for your health. Seed oil factories claim that the concentration of hexane is regulated, and is only used in amounts small enough to not become carcinogenic. And technically the hexane is distilled out afterwards. But honestly, that claim isn't convincing enough for me to be consuming it in every salad dressing, condiment, bag of chips, loaf of bread, frozen pizza, pasta sauce, cookie, popcorn, granola bar, oat milk, peanut butter, etc… Does your brain hurt yet? Because mine does!

When it comes to consuming oils, I’d rather not consume ones that require unnecessary extra solvents to produce them. When shopping around for oils to consume in your food, or in your personal care products, opt for products that use cold pressed extraction, because this means that they are not heated up with toxic solvents like hexane!

The second way that seed oils create concern for your health is their inflammation factor. There are two main types of essential fatty acids that are present in seed oils: Omega-6s and Omega-3s. Omega-3s are anti-inflammatory, while Omega-6s are inflammatory. Although it sounds counter-intuitive, inflammatory Omega-6s are “essential” because they help the body respond to illness and heal injuries through inflammation. But too much inflammation can be damaging and lead to things like heart disease, obesity, and arthritis. Which is why a healthy balance of anti-inflammatory Omega-3s are necessary for optimal bodily function.

The Modern Western diet exposes us to way too many inflammatory fatty acids, and we are all feeling the negative health effects of having unbalanced nourishment (Gunnars, 2023). I’ve linked an article below by Kris Gunnars that goes into detail about how to balance your intake of Omega-3s & 6s! In her article she shares some scientific data about seed oils, and recommends avoiding seed oils and opting for some more whole fat sources like butter, coconut oil, and olive oil.

When choosing foods and personal care products, look for ones that don’t have inflammatory seed oils. 

Keep your eye out for these common inflammatory seed oils lurking in unexpected ingredients lists:

Instead go for these:

Now you know why the health community advocates against seed oils! It's pretty insane that inflammatory seed oils have infiltrated our foods and personal care products. Even in foods or products that don’t even require the use of an oil! Like bread! It blows my mind how they just put weird filler oils into a regular loaf of bread. They are often used because they are cheap and easy to use as filler ingredients, so companies can save money by not selling you authentic products with real ingredients. I can’t wait for the day where we can shop at the grocery store without having to check every ingredient list for random inflammatory seed oils.

Check out the article that I referenced by Kris Gunnars!: