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I’ve got news for you. Those vegetable oils in your pantry are making you fat. Even the so-called heart-healthy vegetable fats like grapeseed oil should be avoided!
This also includes Earth Balance, the “natural oil blend” competitor to Smart Balance that sells like hotcakes at your local health food store.
These factory fats are expanding your backside with every spread of the knife on your morning toast whether you realize it or not.
Omega-6 Fat Dangers
The reason is that these vegetable oil bottles and spreads are loaded with omega-6 fats. This fat is also called linoleic acid (PUFAs) and is distinguished from the healthy omega-6 gamma linolenic acid which actually helps you lose weight.
Confused yet?
The rancid omega-6 fats primarily found in the Western diet come from soy, corn, cottonseed, and canola oil (which also contains rancid omega-3 fats) and are a category of polyunsaturated oils found in seeds and grains.
While eating seeds and grains is not a bad thing, concentrating the oils from them is.
The fact is that there isn’t a whole lot of oil in an ear of corn or a soybean, so to make an entire bottle of corn or soybean oil takes violent and heavily industrialized processing.
“Earth” Balance doesn’t sound so earthy after all, does it?
Omega-6 vegetable oils are not generally fats that you could easily produce in the comfort of your own kitchen like the simple and age old process of pressing olives into olive oil (a monounsaturated omega-9 fat) or churning cream into butter.
Here’s where the “fat” part comes in.
While a very small amount of omega-6 fats are necessary for health, when consumed to excess as happens with the Western diet, vegetable oils contribute to overproduction of neuromodulatory lipids called endocannabinoids that are responsible for signaling hunger to the brain.
Guess what these little guys do?
They give you the munchies!
You may notice that the word endocannabinoids is similar to cannabis (weed). Weed is famous for giving people the munchies too so you can consider omega-6 vegetable oils the marijuana of fatty acids.
Now you know why you can’t stop eating a jumbo bag of chips made with corn, soy, or sunflower oil.
Aha!
Is that why it’s so easy to eat an entire box of Archway Frosted Lemon Cookies in the blink of an eye!
What about that organic dressing loaded with omega-6 oils that tops your salad at lunchtime? Could it be the reason behind the urge to overeat on the main course or the snack attack at 3 pm?
Just try to gorge yourself the same way with a box of cookies made with butter, coconut oil or palm oil or wolf down a plateful of french fries that were cooked in beef fat (tallow).
No can do.
You see, whole natural fats like tallow satiate you and keep your blood sugar steady so you stay full and comfortable and eat much less. Omega-6 vegetable oils, on the other hand, cause you to keep on eating and eating and eating until you have perhaps even made a complete glutton of yourself in a major way.
What’s most troubling is that food manufacturers are doubling down on the vegetable oil scam. Instead of switching their products to better fats, they continue to use the most damaging ones, even marketing some of them such as CLA safflower oil as a weight loss aid!
It seems with America’s weight problem now at a crisis level, it’s time for a return to the traditional fats of our ancestors which didn’t contribute to overeating or weight issues.
Isn’t it high time to stop listening to the talking heads on TV and take matters into your own hands? Chuck that tub of Earth Balance in the trash and substitute butter for oils that require a factory to produce them.
Your stomach and your backside will thank you.
Get the Skinny on Vegetable Oils and other Fats
Check out my book Get Your Fats Straight to get the whole story about what fats to eat for optimal health and what fats to avoid in an easily understandable, comprehensive format.
References
Why Women Need Fat, William Lassek MD
Roseann @ The Wholesome Life
I have a question regarding Canola Oil. As a tour bus operator, my husband travels quite a bit. During a recent trip, he was able to visit with his sister in VA. She gave him a jar of 100% organic, unrefined expeller pressed Canola Oil, that was locally produced by her neighbors. I know that refined processed Canola Oil that is sold in the stores is not good, but is this locally produced unrefined organic oil ok to use in cooking? I hate to waste it and my husband really thought he was doing a “good” thing. Of course I am not using it in place of raw grassfed butter, and pure coconut oil. I just want to know if I can use it in conjunction with the healthy saturated fats.
Thanks for your posts. They are so very informative!
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist
You absolutely cannot cook with canola as it is high in omega 3 fats which are delicate and go rancid quite easily.
kari
Hi Roseann,
Maybe you could make some salad dressing or something like that with it? That way you could use it without heating it : )
Cassandra
I’m quite proud to say the only reason canola oil is in my pantry is for making homemade playdough!
Ariel
Ooo, how do you do that?
Cassandra
http://thetoyboxyears.blogspot.com/2011/08/kool-aid-playdough.html
Great way to use up any leftover bad stuff too.
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist
Excellent use for what is really an industrialized oil not fit for human consumption. But, playdoh? That’s another matter entirely. 🙂
Laurie
Another great post. This is one of the big things I first noticed when switching to saturated fats – I got full. Simple, but effective. When I remember to take my tablespoon of coconut oil 20 minutes before meals, I know it helps me to avoid overeating.
Teresa
Did it cause you to lose weight? The saturated fat theory is so true. It does fill me up but I want to lose about 10 lbs.
Nicole
I was having a discussion about fats and cholesterol with my mom last week. She was showing frustration that her cholesterol was so high. A few years ago she went to Africa on a humanitarian mission for four months. While they were there the food choices were limited, as you can imagine. She ate more butter and eggs than she has ever before and her cholesterol went down and she lost weight! Of course, she came home and got back on her fake butter and gained the weight back and her cholesterol went back up.
One more plug…I had a hard time convincing my husband to switch away from spread margarine. I bought a Butter Bell and love it. Real butter spreads nicely!
Charlene
Isn’t it amazing the cognitive dissonance that happens when our experience doesn’t jive with what we’re told. We are so conditioned to trust authorities that we discount contradictory evidence. Thanks, Sarah, for your hard work getting us back to reality.
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist
Yes, we must come back to trusting our powers of observation more than what the talking heads and the so called “experts” are trying to make us believe USUALLY with the end result being profit for themselves or those that sponsor their meaningless media chatter.
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist
My Grandpa ate 2 eggs fried in butter every morning for breakfast and ate the thick strip of fat around his steaks. He lived to be 97 on his own independently (chewed tobacco right up into his 90’s too). I don’t know about you, but I’m eating like HIM. I’ll skip the chewing tobacco though 🙂
Dan
Although I completely agree that industrial seed oils are not good at all, I can’t say I agree with you when you say that they are bad because they cause you to overeat, in comparison to saturated fats. I have baked a pound of sweet potato fries that were covered with coconut oil and sea salt and still ended up eating them all in one sitting.
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist
Of course you can still overeat on the good stuff. There were still a few overweight folks years ago when processed vegetable oils didn’t exist. Omega-6 fats make it a daily habit though instead of an occasional indulgence.
Ariel
A very important point!
Cana
@Dan – sweet potato fries in coconut oil and sea salt sound delicious. No wonder you ate the whole pound! At least it was healthy saturated fat and not the deadly liquid grain-based oil.
Magda
It has been sooo looong since one of these oils was in my pantry – canola was my family’s choice years ago. I wish I’d known then how it was made!!! I even admit to eating Country Crock – Churn Style (what a crock, huh? – pun intended)… I think it has now been over 12 years since I’ve cooked with anything but lard, ghee, coconut oil and occasionally peanut oil. I love going back to traditional fats. I have always loved butter and have eaten it by the spoonfull growing up… I hope to instill the same love in both my boys – my younger 2 YO loves it as I do and my almost 8 YO is on his way!!
Merina
Sarah, I am so excited to find your blog! I am new to WAPF and am still reading the book Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Dr. Mary Enig and Sally Fallon. I have thought of myself as a health fanatic for most of my adult life, but I am finding out that all the different ways I’ve tried to eat has really made me sick!
I will be visiting your site daily and I do have one question. What bran of sourdough bread do you eat? Do you purchase it in the store or online? I think I am confused when it states simply Sourdough or sprouted. If you would share a few brands I would greatly appreciate it.
You are lovely looking, your skin is beautiful and your eyes sparkle. I want that healthy glow too. Thank you for such a wonderful blog!
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist
There are several brands I enjoy … you should really buy the WAPF Shopping Guide and it lists many many excellent brands of bread that you can either find at the healthfood store or by mail order.
Grace
One August in the late 1970s, a cousin and I decided that we could take an ear of corn and turn it into butter. Easy, right? That’s what the oleo was made from.
We stripped the kernels off a few cobs and set about mashing them in a big molcajete. Then mashed and mashed and mashed, but we never got butter.
Deciding we were using the wrong tool, we got the butter churn out and dumped our corn mash into that. Still didn’t work.
Apparently you can’t get butter from corn. Who knew?
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist
If people only can just grasp that they can’t make this stuff in their own kitchens they will realize what an incredibly unhealthy processed food these vegetable oils truly are. If you can’t make it in your kitchen easily, it shouldn’t be eaten.
Stanley Fishman
That is a great saying. And absolutely true. It was not even possible to make these kinds of vegetable oil until the twentieth century. And they require heavy processing to reach the form of oil. But, as you said, if you cannot make in your kitchen easily, it should not be eaten.
Linda
Yes! That’s great Sarah ….oh I am learning sooo much . I hope someone asked what leaf lard is though ! 🙂
Kenedi - Real Food Whole Life
Hi Sarah,
I just found your blog. So nice to find other real foodies out there when time allows me.
Oh, how it makes me cringe when folks start trying to tell me how soy, corn, and Canola oils are good for us. Ick!!!