In his efforts to Make America Healthy Again (better known as the MAHA campaign), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is rioting against seed oils. The movement has gained significant attention across social media, with influencers, podcasters (namely, Joe Rogan) and, even, restaurant chains slamming on seed oils.
“Seed oils are one of the most unhealthy ingredients that we have in foods,” Kennedy claimed in an interview with Fox News last fall, adding that they’re “associated with all kinds of serious illnesses including body-wide inflammation which affects all of our health.”
The term seed oils is fairly new and refers to cooking oils extracted from the seeds of various plants that are then refined using chemicals like hexane and tertiary-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), a synthetic preservative. In recent years, supporters of the MAHA movement have taken issue with eight specific seed oils: corn, canola, cottonseed, grapeseed, soy, sunflower, safflower and rice bran — collectively dubbed the “hateful eight.” Their main argument is that seed oils are high in omega-six fatty acids, which aren’t detrimental to human health but can lead to inflammation when consumed in excess.
“First, while seed oils do contain high levels of omega-six fatty acids, that's not a bad thing,” per the American Heart Association. “Omega-six is a polyunsaturated fat the body needs but cannot produce itself, so it must get it from foods. Polyunsaturated fats help the body reduce bad cholesterol, lowering the risk for heart disease and stroke.”
The Standard American Diet (SAD) is typically high in omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3s, which are obtained through diet or supplementation and help promote heart, brain, eye, joint and skin health. In that regard, omega-3s are known as “healthy fats,” but that doesn’t mean omega-6s are necessarily “unhealthy fats.” In fact, dieticians and doctors recommend a healthy balance of omega-six to omega-three fatty acids in one’s diet.
“The first thing to remember is that something can be safe but still be unhealthy, and that is where I think we need to be careful about how we talk about these oils, because they're not inherently unsafe, but depending on what you're doing with them, they can be very unhealthy,” said Dr. Brintha Vasagar, a board-certified family medicine physician and the chief medical officer of Progressive Community Health Centers.
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She explained that within the Western diet, seed oils are typically found in ultraprocessed foods (UPFs): “We're talking about things that are deep fried, things that come out of a box or a can or are meant to stay on the shelf for months or years. Those have so many other things in them that we know are unhealthy — high sugars, high fats, high carbs — that it's hard to tease apart whether that is truly the seed oil itself or these other things that are affecting our health.”
Indeed, there’s still limited scientific research and evidence proving that seed oils are harmful to health. The MAHA movement promotes the use of beef tallow (a saturated fat) in lieu of seed oils (an unsaturated fat). Saturated fats can raise cholesterol levels, hence why seed oils grew in popularity over the past century.
“Just because something has less influence on your cholesterol doesn't mean that it has less influence on your risk of heart disease or death from heart disease,” Vasagar said. “That’s the part where scientific researchers are really trying to drill down what's better for your health.”
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She continued, “The unsatisfying answer is that it really depends on the oil. Each of the ‘toxic eight’ seed oils has a different concentration of omega six fatty acids to omega three fatty acids. And that's where we think the distinction lies in the overall heart risk.”
In the United States, the most commonly sold seed oil is soybean oil, which is actually healthier than beef tallow when it comes to overall heart risk, Vasagar said.
The ongoing seed oil discourse underscores the growing distrust regarding food safety, food production and food processes. A 2024 trend report conducted by Gallup found that 57% of U.S. adults have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the government to keep the food supply safe. That statistic is down 11 percent from Gallup’s prior reading in 2019. Additionally, 28 percent of Americans do not have much confidence and 14 percent have “none at all.”
As for whether we should be afraid of seed oils, the simple answer is no. Vasagar recommended oils derived from fruit, such as olive oil, as a healthier alternative to seed oils. But that doesn’t mean seed oils should be cut out from diets entirely. It’s best to consume them in moderation and limit one’s intake of UPFs.
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