Two articles about oils have come my way recently, reinforcing my recommendations to avoid seed oils and processed foods.

Over the last 100 years, the amount of soybean oil in the American diet has dramatically increased, and so has the incidence of various chronic diseases. Soybean oil and seed oils such as sunflower or canola oil are high in the omega-6 fatty acid called linoleic acid. While humans require a little bit of linoleic acid in their diet, industrial seed oils contain a lot.

A recent article in Wise Traditions, the journal of the Weston A Price Foundation, goes into great detail about the harms caused by excess linoleic acid.

I learned about the second article through Medscape, an online newsletter sent to health practitioners. Their orientation is orthodox, so whenever something about nutrition appears, the topic is starting to be acknowledged in the medical world at large. In the article discussed on Medscape, the researchers reported that a high soybean oil diet (similar to a typical American diet) can cause inflammatory changes in the gut in mice.

Soybean oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil and canola oil are everywhere; any processed food, any bottled salad dressing, any restaurant meal will contain one of them, whether it is organic or not. The solution? Cook at home, so you know what you are eating.