Ask HN: Are seed oils truly bad for you? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are seed oils truly bad for you?

1 pointcarabiner5 comments

Massive amounts of conflicting info on this. Seems to be a topic du jour in nutrition. I know smart people who have very different views on this. Some say it's borderline conspiracy nonsense pushed by uninformed guys like Joe Rogan, others say it's a legit health risk in line with well-known hazards of overly processed foods. What does HN think?

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From many deep dives into nutrition research, I'm willing to bet it doesn't matter that much unless your diet is extreme. Is your diet a small amount of seed oils from time to time? Probably fine. Are you trying to replace all other fats with seed oils? Probably not a good idea.

Michael Pollan's dietary rules[1] are pretty good and applicable. Eat a varied diet and, most importantly, don't overeat any single thing and don't overeat in general.

1. https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-for...

The traditional hypotheses was that because vegetable oils rich in linoleic acid lower your cholesterol they also reduce your chance of heart disease. It turned out that conclusion was early and nutrition research is still have ways to go before it can unravel this particular mystery, given the complexity involved.

So we basically don't know, nobody does. Don't eat anything. Don't listen to people like Joe Rogan either who make a living manufacturing controversy. There is no controversy. We just have no idea what's going on at the moment. Biology is complicated. Stay tuned.

Probably not, here's a nice detailed breakdown - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efTBLsv4yYs - the style isn't for everyone but it covers a lot.

I think the last part is the most relevant: Every processed food, bakery, fast food, restaurant... is using seed oils. So to have variety you will be better off using non-seed oils like olive oil or others

You're not going to get an answer to that here. But I've found Chris Knobbe's arguments to be convincing.

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