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Welcome to my website and blog! I am a Licensed Nutritionist and in addition to seeing clients, I study and write about alternative medicine, nutrition science, and carnivore and animal-based ways-of-eating.

​​Seed Oils: The Underlying Cause of Obesity and Disease 

​​Seed Oils: The Underlying Cause of Obesity and Disease 

Marissa Olsen
Nutrition Science



There is a hidden ingredient in our food that is causing obesity and common chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Although bacon cheeseburgers, carbohydrates, and sugar have traditionally been blamed for rampant obesity and metabolic disease, they are not actually to blame. The hidden ingredient in our food (especially almost all restaurant food and processed food) causing this damage to the human body is vegetable oil – or as nutrition scientists more commonly refer to it: “seed oils”. 

Seed oils are known scientifically under many names: linoleic acid, omega-6 fatty acids, and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). Dr. Cate Shanahan, long-time nutritionist for the LA Lakers and author of Deep Nutrition, calls these oils the “Hateful Eight” – including soybean, corn, canola (rapeseed), safflower, sunflower, cottonseed, grape seed, and rice bran oil*.

None of these seed oil fats were historically part of the human diet, as our ancestors did not press the oil out of soybeans or corn in the wild, and in fact humans did not eat beans and grains at all until quite recently. Historically, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers who ate mostly meat and fruit – they mostly hunted large game (ruminant animals) and gathered eggs and ripe fruit. The fat sources in the traditional human diet included lots of fat from animals as well as from fruits that contain fat like olives, avocados, and coconuts.

There are 3 basic types of fat: saturated fat, monounsaturated fat, and polyunsaturated fats. Saturated fat largely comes from animal fats and coconut oil, monounsaturated fats come from fatty fruits like avocado, and polyunsaturated fats are found in seeds. Saturated fat is solid at room temperature (think beef tallow and butter) due to being completely “saturated” with hydrogen. This causes saturated fat to avoid bonding with oxygen, since it does not have any double bonds that can attach to oxygen molecules. This also allows saturated fat molecules to stack together, which is what makes it solid at room temperature. When mono- and polyunsaturated fats have an area that lacks a bond with hydrogen, the fat molecules can bend here, and no longer are able to stack neatly together like they do with saturated fat. Because of these bends in the fat chains, mono and poly fats are liquid at room temperature. 

The 3 main kinds of dietary fat.

If a fat is not “saturated” with hydrogen bonds, oxygen atoms can attach to the long fat chains – mono (which means “one”) fats have one oxygen-attracting bend, and poly (which means “many”) fats have multiple bends. When oxygen attaches to these bends, the fat becomes oxidized, which means that the fats are going rancid and causing inflammation and disease in the human body * . 

The fats we eat get incorporated into the body’s tissues, and all cells in the body have a phospholipid membrane – meaning that the outside wall of each of our cells is made of various kinds of fat. When the cell membrane is composed of the weaker, more liquid mono- (MUFAs) and poly- fats (PUFAs), the cells become weak and damaged which can lead to metabolic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, stroke, and cancer.

graph from optimisingnutrition.com

Starting about a century ago, large amounts of polyunsaturated fats were introduced into the human diet. It started with Crisco, a company that began to chemically process cottonseed oil to make it available for popular consumption. Whereas prior to WWI, cottonseed oil had been used to lubricate machinery, after the war ended this fat was advertised to Americans as a “heart healthy” alternative to the tallow, lard, and butter that had been common in those days. 

Not only were seed oils introduced as food for humans, but they were also introduced as food for livestock. Animals like chickens and pigs are monogastric, meaning that they have one stomach - and all monogastric animals store the seed oils they eat without converting them into another kind of fat, like healthy saturated fat. If monogastric animals are fed seed oils, they store the seed oils, and then when we eat the bacon or chicken skin, we are eating the stored seed oils in their fat. 

Cows are the best fat source because they are polygastric (they have four stomachs) and ample beneficial bacteria in their stomachs to help convert the fats they eat – even when the cows are fed corn and corn oil – into healthy saturated fat. So even corn-fed beef still makes healthy saturated-fat rich butter and tallow, and this means that the fat from ruminant animals (bison, goat, elk, lambs, and sheep, as well as cows) is always going to be the safest and healthiest fat for the human body. In the carnivore community, we say “cows are king”.

Despite this, even grass-fed cows have a little bit of polyunsaturated fat in their bodies that we consume when we eat red meat and dairy. The ideal amount of PUFA to consume is less than 10 grams a day. Although eggs have a smaller percentage of PUFA than chicken fat and chicken skin, we get some seed oils from eggs as well (about 0.5 grams per egg, unless your eggs are corn-free AND soy-free). Red meat has about 3% PUFA in grass-fed meat and 6% in corn-fed meat, which is about 3 grams in a pound of 70% lean corn-fed beef *,*. Since red meat and eggs are some of the best foods for the human body, we will already be getting a small amount of PUFA in our diet even if we are avoiding seed oils and eating as healthy as possible.

There is rampant misinformation in the US regarding seed oils, and many in the medical community advise that people consume large amounts of seed oils. This misinformation stems from the idea that consuming PUFA reduces cholesterol, and that high levels of LDL cholesterol is linked to heart disease. This “research” largely benefits the agriculture industry and the medical establishment. It has been proven wrong by a number of studies showing that not only does lowering LDL cholesterol (and cholesterol numbers in general) not protect against heart disease, it actually RAISES the risk *,*. 

Likewise, some nutrition researchers have reported that PUFAs just need to be in a specific ratio with omega-3 fats, but this is not true*. Although omega-3 fats (like fish oil) are also technically polyunsaturated fats with similar multiple bends, they are not as harmful as the omega-6 poly fats from seed oils and may have some benefit in the human body. But, the ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 (another name for seed oil-derived PUFA) is not important. What is important is keeping the total amount of seed oils in your diet down as far as you can, as they are poisonous, get stored in our bodies, and take a very long time to detoxify. 

In fact, researchers have found that the half-life of seed oils in the human body is 680 days – meaning it takes 2 years to clear out HALF of the seed oils that we have stored in our bodies from eating an average Western diet. The total amount of time it takes to remove all stored seed oils from the body is 4-7 years. Since research is also showing that seed oils are likely the main cause of not only obesity, but also all the other metabolic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, it’s clear that we need to get our seed oil consumption down as low as possible, as fast as possible, and AVOID SEED OILS LIKE THE PLAGUE!!

How do we do this? It’s not as challenging at home, as we can just swap out any “vegetable” oils that we have (which are all seed oils) for healthy beef tallow, butter, and high-quality olive oil, and coconut oil, in addition to avoiding the fat from chicken and pork – while still enjoying the protein from these animals like boneless skinless chicken breasts, fat free ham, and lean pork loin (which are easy to buy at any grocery store). We also need to avoid eating all beans, nuts, and seeds, as their main source of fat is from seed oils. 

The real problem is eating at restaurants. Studies have found that up to 40% of the calories in a typical restaurant meal are from seed oils, as they are very cheap and help keep costs down*. Basically, most restaurant food is completely saturated in seed oils. All fried food, sauteed food, salad dressings, and sauces derive their calories from seed oils. French fries. Ranch dressing. Asian stir-fry. Sauteed onions. Chicken fingers. Chicken wings. All seed oil. BUT, the good news is that there are a couple of restaurants that have beef tallow in their fryer – (one popular restaurant with a 100% beef tallow fryer is Buffalo Wild Wings - carnivore French fries!) and some authentic French restaurants. The two things that you can always order in a restaurant and be fairly confident that they are free of seed oils are beef burgers (no bun or mayo) and steak. Since beef has a good amount of fat in it, cooks and chefs don’t usually add any oil to the pan or griddle when cooking burgers and steaks. If you want to order a salad on the side, ask for oil and vinegar and dress it yourself. If you want to order a baked potato, ask the server to check that they have 100% butter or have them bring you the butter packets so you can read the ingredients. Even some popular chain steakhouses serve “butter” that is a 50% seed oil blend. You can even order beef patties from most “fast-food” restaurants - they are almost always 100% beef with no fillers or seed oils, and just add pickles, tomato, onions and mustard if you want!

Many French restaurants in the US use canola oil in their fryers, although traditionally French food (and Italian food too) abhors seed oils and only uses animal fats. This is the reason for the so-called “French paradox” - the observation that despite eating lots of carbs and high-fat food, French people do not historically get fat or have many of the Western diseases like diabetes and heart disease. If you go to France or Italy, you can be certain the vast majority of your food will be cooked with healthy animal fats. But in America, you will have to ask them to check the box that their fryer oil came in to see if it really is 100% tallow, or if it is instead a blend that includes a substantial amount of seed oils. I like to call the restaurant in the afternoon when they are slow, and politely explain that I don’t eat seed oils and ask kindly if they can check the ingredients on their butter, salad dressing, and/or fryer oil. 

There are a number of beneficial healing effects in the body from removing seed oils from your diet and making sure that you don’t get more than 10 grams per day from all sources, including beef and eggs. Within 3 months of making this change in my own diet, I could eat moderate amounts of carbohydrates again without gaining weight. Before this, if I even ate a tiny bit of carbohydrates I put on weight! I also found that the intense cravings that I would get from having a serving of carbohydrates was gone. I felt normal again, like when I was a kid and could eat carbohydrates and not immediately have intense cravings and end up overeating. 

Another major benefit was the fact that many people who stop consuming seed oils also stop burning in the sun*! This has been well documented with my clients and others in the carnivore community. The reason that we get such high levels of sunburn and skin cancer is likely because the high level of seed oils in our diet is weakening our skin cells and causing our skin to become damaged from sunlight*. Of course our ancestors got a lot of sun - for hundreds of thousands of years humans were hunter-gatherers living near the equator. Why would we suddenly be experiencing so much sunburn and skin cancer? It’s not the sun, it’s the oils (as well as the toxic sunscreens) damaging our skin!

So what should we eat? The most important change we can make is to remove seeds and seed oils from our diet. Unfortunately, if you go out to eat regularly this can be the most difficult change to make. But it is worth it. Our ancestors ate mostly animal foods and fruit. Fruits are defined as “the fleshy and sometimes sweet part of the plant that contains seeds and can be eaten”, which includes all sweet fruits, as well as zucchini and other squashes, cucumber, avocado, olives, and coconut. Many carnivore or animal-based people also do well with root vegetables like carrots and sweet potato - although cooking them first removes some or most of the oxalate toxins. Fruit is the only part of the plant designed for consumption, as most fruit seeds pass through animal’s digestive systems and are planted in the waste. We know that pre-industrial humans were hunter-gatherers - they hunted large game and they gathered fruit. They did not eat seeds, as most are unpalatable, inaccessible, or indigestible in their raw state.

All foods derived from seeds are damaging to the human body - including nuts, grains and beans. Even the seeds in fruit and berries can sometimes aggravate those with a more damaged gut lining. Not only do seeds like grains, beans, and nuts contain seed oils, but they also have many other plant toxins in them to deter animals from eating them. Plants can’t run away like animals, so plants put defense chemicals in the parts of the plant that they don’t want you to eat - mostly the seeds, stems, and leaves.

When humans grind the seeds into flour or chew them, we are releasing these toxic plant chemicals into our bodies and damaging our intestinal lining and all of our cells. A common seed defense chemical is gluten, which is the protein found in the bran (outer) part of the seed of wheat plants and wreaks havoc on the gut and digestive system of humans. Grains were only added to the human diet in the last couple of thousand years with the advent of agriculture. There are hundreds of other harmful plant chemicals, like lectins, oxalates, phytates, phytoestrogens, phenols, saponins, and tannins, to name a few. Meat and fruit do not have any of these toxins and are the preferred foods for the human body, as they were the foods of our ancestors for hundreds of thousands of years.

Although olive oil and avocado oil are monounsaturated fats and don’t contain PUFA, there are a couple of concerns with consuming these forms of fat. They do still have one bend, so they are able to oxidize a little bit, and need to be cold pressed  (so-called “extra virgin”), and stored in dark containers. As they are liquid at room temperature, they are not as healthy for the body’s cells as saturated fats which have no bends and cannot oxidize at all. Saturated fats are firmer fats that are stronger for our cell linings. The second problem with olive oil and avocado oil is the fact that many American companies have recently been caught lying on the label and adulterating these fats with seed oils. One recent study found that over 80% of avocado oils and olives oils have been cut with seed oils*. Luckily, studies have found that Costco’s Kirkland Brand is 100% pure olive oil *! Also the Chosen Foods brand of avocado oil at Costco is 100% pure as well. The only other brand that the study found that contained 100% avocado oil was Marianne’s, which is sold at Costco and Whole Foods *,*.

There is rampant fraud in the food industry in the US. Not only are companies adulterating oils, but the food industry and the US government are allowing misinformation to negatively affect the health of Americans, switching out our fryer oils from healthy tallow and coconut oil to extremely unhealthy seed oils in the 1980s, and driving up levels of obesity and disease in the decades since. It is up to us to change our diets and heal our bodies. The good news is that it’s possible, many of us have already done it, and you can do it too. Throw out your seed oils, stop eating chicken and pork fat, refuse to eat foods at restaurants that contain seed oils, call your local restaurants and grocers and request healthier fats, and bring your own olive oil and butter with you when you go out to eat or go to a friend’s house for dinner. 

The benefits from switching to a diet of primarily meat, eggs, dairy, and fruit include losing weight, eating healthy carbohydrates without gaining weight, tanning in the sun without sunburn, aging more gracefully, and avoiding disease.  We will have a new and improved relationship with food as our bodies heal and we become more intuitive about our eating and nutrition needs. Take charge of your body and watch your body heal. Watch excess weight fall off, long-standing health problems resolve, your ability to tan in the sun return as well as significantly lower rates of sunburn and skin cancer, to once again be able to eat carbohydrates without excessive weight gain as well as an increase in intuitive eating and a lack of food cravings. 

Even if you cheat and eat junk food, DO NOT EAT SEED OILS. Just remind yourself, 680 days to clear out half of them! Within 3 months of lowering my PUFA consumption to 10 grams/day or less, I saw changes happen in my body and I started healing and losing weight. You can do it too! 

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