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Comment by lambdaba | Hacker News Reader

Wasn't there something about some seed oil fumes being toxic? Maybe it's related to some cooking practices. Highly speculative but the cooking oil toxicity is well-known.

[edit] found this with a quick search, seems relevant: Exposure to Cooking Oil Fumes and Oxidative Damages: A Longitudinal Study in Chinese Military Cooks https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4029104/

[edit 2] and indeed the article mentions it, although just in passing, still my hunch would go towards this as it seems a more specific factor than the others that are mentioned

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While this is definitely a possible explanation, I would hesitate to jump to any particular conclusions until further research is done on specific risk factors. The article also mentions air pollution as a possible cause:

>For example, a 2019 study found that Asian Americans breathe in 73% more tiny pollution particles than white Americans, most likely because of greater exposure to construction, industry and vehicle emissions where they live.

As you mention, there is some preliminary research which suggests cooking oil smoke could be related, but this is far from enough to definitively point towards it as the root cause, or even enough to justify your hunch I would argue. Also keep in mind there could be multiple causes of which cooking oil is just one part.

Very empirical, but earlier this year I was talking to a Thai street food cook who mentioned he was scared of getting cancer from the cooking fumes, because he knew many people who were also cooks and got ill.

N95s will definitely help in this situation.

Note that the N in N95 means not resistant to oil. P100 is a much better choice.

s/empirical/anecdotal/

Damn it, I meant anecdotal, but as a non native words sometimes just don’t pop up in my brain when tired!

It probably also doesn’t help that some cooking techniques, like wok hei, involve heating the oil past its burning point.

Wok hei isn't a home cook technique

It can be, but you have to mod your stove, and you're supposed to move it outside first.

You can also buy an outdoor wok burner, but home cooks are generally not getting much wok hei.

I just use a turkey fryer.

Many stir fry recipes involve heating oil until smoking.

Most likely this.

Mustard Oil is critical for South Asian cooking and is labeled as "not for consumption" in the US.

I also wonder how much is because of immigration and the pollution in the old country (even countries like South Korea and SG have horrid AQIs)

Mustard oil is rich in unsaturated fatty acids, but it also contains a special type of fatty acid called erucic acid, which lies at the center of the controversy surrounding the oil. Seeds from the brassica family of plants, which includes rapeseed and mustard, in addition to cabbage and kale, all contain varying amounts of erucic acid. Early experimental studies on animals in the 1950s suggested that erucic acid possibly had a role in the development of heart disease.

From: https://www.seriouseats.com/mustard-oil-guide (there's a lot more and it's worth a read)

east asians don't use mustard oil

Notice how I said SOUTH, and how the article notes the same issue in Indian Americans

but the article explains that the issue affects women from several different Asian American backgrounds, not just Indian Americans

Edit - however sibling comment seems to indicate that East Asians use Rapeseed Oil which presents similar issues, so you might be onto something

They use caiziyou, AKA roasted rapeseed oil, which has a high level of erucic acid, similar to mustard oil. (Rapeseed is a member of the mustard family. Canola is low-erucic acid rapeseed oil.)

Rapeseed oil for cooking is a staple in Germany. If erucic acid or its thermal products are the cause, there would also be many cases of lung cancer in Germany.

I think this is a naming thing, canola is an English word for a variety of rapeseed, and IIUC Germany uses the same food-safe version.

Canola: CANadian Oil Low Acid

that wouldn't be related to mustard gas, would it?

Mustard oil and mustard gas are only related by color. Mustard oil is made from mustard seed. Mustard gas contains sulfur and nitrogen mustards which are yellow.

Full roundabout:

In the 1940s, sulfur mustard, commonly called mustard gas, and nitrogen mustard, a derivative of mustard gas, became a new form of cancer treatment.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5325736/

Gas ranges aren't the only range that needs to be vented, all need it.

I was surprised about this when I moved to the USA. We cooked on electricity in Belgium, and there was a range hood.

Then you come here and you start to look at apartments and there is no hood at all. Weird.

Or you see a microwave with a vent that vents inside.

Makes you wonder whether a mandatory range hood that vents outside is better than a gas range ban...

Absolutely! Having only gotten into a house with a well done vent going outside recently, it is alarming how much cleaner everything in the kitchen is. Heck, I'm pretty sure the entire house shows signs that we don't have as much oil residue as we had in our previous houses.

Now... there is also the eye opener that is cleaning the range hood for the first time. Holy crap.

Yes, and having installed one myself, its no picnic so I can understand why there would be a pushback against that and instead scapegoating the gas range. But really its insane how much crap gets into the air when you cook anything indoors on any type of range.

What type of cooking oil does that?

Seed oils mainly, a factor of the lower smoke point. The only suitable plant oils in this regard are olive and coconut oil - which are fruit oils.

[edit] seed oils r bad skeptics can just double check - the top 3 highest smoke point oils are all fruit oils, with seed oils at a distance - with the exception of peanut oil, which is closer.

The smoke point is also not the only relevant factor, the fatty acid makeup is also important, high omega-6 oils are more likely to oxidize, coconut oil for instance is high in saturated fat, olive oil is mainly monounsaturated.

Smoke point is a measure of when obvious quantities of particles are emitted, not their chemical composition. Extra virgin olive oil has lower smoke point than refined olive oil, but it's more chemically stable under frying conditions:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20678538/

However, you're correct that seed oils are generally less stable under frying conditions than other oils.

Most seed oils have a higher smoking point, as compared to olive oil.

Depends on how refined

Yeah but it's about what the chemicals turn into when they reach a certain temperature, seed oils probably have something in them that is chemically different

Sunflower and groundnut oil is higher smoke point than olive.

See edit, it's indeed a factor of both fatty acid makeup and smoke point. Seed oils tend to have more PUFAs which oxidize easily. Olive oil, on the contrary, is not only mostly monounsaturated but also contains anti oxidant compounds that are protective (I think oleic acid, and others)

Damn so sesame oil or soybean oil? Those are essential is asian cuisine

Soybean oil is mentioned in the study. A lot of people get very angry when seed oil dangers are mentioned, it's hilariously politicized, the fact is these are not lindy at all, there is no tradition that would validate their safety, these are 20th century inventions.

>when seed oil dangers are mentioned, it's hilariously politicized

???

Where are you seeing this? It's definitely controversial, but calling it "politicized" seems like a stretch.

I am equally confused. I think there is a dumb but somewhat worrying trend of people's political identity becoming so pervasive that it absorbs secondary and tertiary opinions about completely unrelated things.

Yes, a large segment of conservatives have taken the place that previously left-wing hippies occupied wrt skepticism of mainstream health advice, and seed oils is a major subject, I would say even iconic, with places like Reddit vehemently disagreeing and calling it anti-science or whatever. I agree that it's unfortunate, but currently this previously left-wing impulse to favor "natural", "unprocessed" products is predominantly found in right-wing circles.

Yeah this is a really weird shift that has happened in a relatively short time. In Sweden we have strange groups of nazis and hippies that you wouldn’t have thought would happen in a million years when I was a kid in the 80s/90s.

Seed oil avoidance is right-wing coded, it's undeniable.

To be clear, a segment of the online right-wing, I'm not saying literally half the population.

> Seed oil avoidance is right-wing coded, it's undeniable.

Even taking that claim at face value, "right-wing coded" is hardly the same as "hilariously politicized". Living in rural areas is right-wing coded as well[1], but nobody would seriously call it "hilariously politicized", especially when you consider the broader context of the phrase:

>A lot of people get very angry when seed oil dangers are mentioned, it's hilariously politicized

[1] https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/national-result...

Can you elaborate further? I think of myself as pretty online (sadly) and I haven't heard anyone, right or left, talk about the politics of seed oils.

EDIT: should've searched first. Sigh.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/is-see...

Soybean oil is very common in most American deep fried food.

I know it's not very HN of me but I want to point out your username is highly relevant to the discussion.

I must admit, I cook all my food with Avocado oil. Unless EVOO can be used.

Understandable, it's delicious. It's great for salad seasonings too, but you're surely aware of that :P.

Give Zero Acre fermented ("cultured") oil a try.

Use them as dressings but don’t cook with it.

enhancer - sesame oil is more used as a dressing/seasoning AIUI rather than a frying oil.

I don’t think that’s the cause, it’s more likely second hand smoke from Asian men who are atrocious smokers.

Except that it doesn't seem like Asian cooking practices have changed significantly in recent years.

Ugh, have to say goodbye to breath of the wok? Or make an outdoor kitchen I suppose.

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