United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has continuously made claims about the damaging effects of seed oils on health despite a complete lack of evidence.
In an Oct. 21, 2024, post on X (formerly Twitter), Kennedy stated that seed oils are “one of the driving causes of the obesity epidemic,” noting that fast food restaurants use them to cook their food.
Even though he is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, it is quite clear that he has not actually read what nutrition research says about seed oils.
Some of the seed oils you have probably heard of are canola oil, grapeseed oil, sunflower oil and sesame oil. These oils are called seed oils because they are made
– as the name implies – from seeds.
Kennedy makes the argument that instead of cooking food with seed oils, cooking food in tallow is a better option, according to a March 14 NPR article.
Seed oils are high in polyunsaturated fat, also called Omega-6s, whereas tallow is high in saturated fat, according to a Nov. 14, 2024, Health article.
Saturated fat is one of the worst kinds of fat for your health, as it can increase your LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol, according to the British Heart Foundation.
This is what is referred to as “bad cholesterol” and is what can lead to plaque build-up and clogging of the arteries, which can eventually lead to a heart attack or an ischemic stroke, according to Cleveland Clinic.
So, what happens when we replace saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat?
A study from the journal Progress in Lipid Research examining subjects who replaced the saturated fat and trans fat in their diet with polyunsaturated fat and monounsaturated fat, found that it reduced the overall risk of type 2 diabetes and insulin sensitivity.
Another study from the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism looking at people on keto diets, found that the group with a higher level of polyunsaturated fat had better insulin sensitivity as well.
We have had this data for a while, with both studies coming out in 2004 and 2009 respectively and Kennedy still claims that a source of saturated fat is going to have better health outcomes than a source of polyunsaturated fat.
It’s hard to determine which is worse: if the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services isn’t aware of this simple data disproving him outright, or if he is choosing to ignore it instead.
A person who is at such a high level of government and can have an immense level of influence on people should be able to read simple research, so it is worrying to see that Kennedy is unable to change his opinion based on what research from years and years ago shows.
Kennedy isn’t the only one claiming that seed oils are terrible for you; he’s just the loudest and most prominent voice.
Dr. Paul Saladino, a psychiatrist, is another prominent voice in the anti-seed oil crowd, who claims that seed oils are why chronic disease and obesity rates are going up, according to an Oct. 19, 2024, YouTube video.
Along with Dr. Saladino, many in the anti-seed oil space use epidemiological studies to back up their claims.
While epidemiological studies have their place in research, they do not find causation; they merely find correlations between one thing and another thing and that correlation does not equal causation.
These studies do find that an increased intake of fat does tend to have a positive correlation with higher rates of obesity, according to a 2002 research article from the Journal of Nutrition.
This isn’t really a surprise because fats are the most calorically dense food and an increase in calories is what leads to obesity, according to a StatPearls research article.
Seed oils have been given an unnecessarily bad reputation by people who purport to be “experts” in the field of nutrition.
If Kennedy really was an expert, he would look at what the research says about seed oils as an alternative to saturated fat and would realize that he has been proven wrong.
This is how the scientific process works. We have a conclusion that has been made based on the current research but expert opinion changes over the years and decades after research proves and disproves what was previously thought to be true.
The same goes for nutrition science. With just about every food you can have, as long as you moderate your diet to be full of relatively nutritious foods, you can keep basically anything in your diet, as registered dietitian Katlyn Cusack said in a Feb. 14 Hackensack Meridian Health article.
Instead of completely cutting out one food group because an “expert” or “guru” claims that it’s bad for you, try eating it in moderation or going even further to do your own research to see if it actually is bad for you.
