The Seed Oil Debate: Evidence, Context, and Public Messaging | Dr. Andy Galpin | Be Well Moments

0:00Welcome to Live Well Be Well, a show to help high performers improve their health and well-being.

0:10What's your thought and take on C-Daws? Because honestly, it's probably one of the most trending, polarizing topics in the health space right now. All right. I love the deep breath that you just took. I'll try to avoid banging my head off the microphone here. You can probably tell by the context in which I'm approaching this question, my overarching feeling on this one. Much to say, like anything, nuance and context is the most appropriate and fair answer here. To say that, though, good grief are people wasting time with seed oil. The research of potential negative effects of seed oil are so weak.

0:58that doesn't mean there's nothing there. If you go, okay, and you give six caveats to that, you can find some examples of seed oils being concerning. Okay, so if it was left outside for seven days in the sun, and it's gone rancid, and someone's in a hypercaloric state, and they overconsume these things in the presence of alcohol, okay, yeah, like, all right. The other only semblance of an argument here that makes sense, there's two... They're bad. They're mental gymnastics. And for the record, I have many, many people who I deeply respect and friends who are as far into like the seed oils or the devil camps as possible.

1:40I would name them by names, but it doesn't matter. That's one argument that they can make. The second argument is it's not that the seed oils are that bad, but they are so commonly consumed in the presence of other really bad behaviors and actions. It's the old gateway, gateway drug sort of thing. Again, in my opinion, that is enormous mental gymnastics. Like, then say that. If that's the true case, say CEDOs aren't bad, say that this is the problem, you're consuming too much bar food and so on and so forth. Don't bait and switch, though. Don't be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, seed oil, seed oil, seed oil, seed oil, seed oil, seed oil, seed oil is a problem.

2:26Oh, but they're not really the problem. They're just putting people in a bad position to eat other things that are the problem. Okay, that is not at all what you're saying, right? So that's my pushback on there. And then number three, the other ones in the States, at least, because of what's happening with the Maha movement, the third argument that they'll generally make is, it's not necessarily about the seed oils per se, is showing how, though, when the people speak, we can make changes to massive food conglomerates. Again, then just don't lie about the fact that the CEDOs are so detrimental.

3:00And okay, so there's a lot of nuance and complexity to that thing. But overwhelmingly, I just don't think that's a good approach. I think there's so many other things you could do to demonstrate that when the people speak and that people are interested and there is financial rewards for companies who make healthier products. Those are good things. But to ban an oil like that and to then come out and say things like, oh yeah, beef tallow is perfectly healthy. So as long as you fry your burgers and beef tallow, I mean, you have to have a special level of like nuts. Yeah, but there is a lot of nuts online.

3:42But like, how can you cogently say that and be like, yeah, that makes sense. It just like does not. So it's unfortunately one of those things where I understand marketing enough and I understand public health messaging. You can't speak in nuance in those positions, or at least people traditionally don't. And this is, one of the problems this introduces is when you have the speaking heads, the same person as a scientist, you force the scientist into a marketer. and that leads to problems because then that person has to say like you have to say one clear message the message to the public seed oils are dangerous seed oils are dangerous if you give any nuance two stories mean no stories and I hope we made it through COVID with the realization of like okay enough of that like enough of that we have to treat adults like adults and this is one thing I will say what the Maha people are doing is that is one of their principles that I fully endorse and support and thank them for yes give the public more credit for intelligence.

4:43I don't care that if you feel like you're going to lose them, we should know as close to the truth as there and don't whitewash it over because you think everyone is a low intellect person. So tell people the truth and with as much reason as possible as you can and as close as you can tell us the truth. So I appreciate the fact that they're like trying to do that. But yes, the seed oil push. And so to my dear friends on that side of the aisle, your arguments are terrible as plainly as possible. How do you have this conversation off air with your friends that are like very against seed oils? I don't.

5:16You don't? It's like politics. You just don't do it. I generally. This is the most political thing I've ever done in public probably in my life. So you're welcome that you pulled that one out. Yeah, thank you. Because I generally hate to do it because I'm just going to get an onslaught of comments and I don't think any of them will beat those four general positions that I just said but we're still going to get it. And it's just not helpful. Like, this is the thing we're talking about. Of all the other interesting ways and things and tools and stuff we can do for improving humankind, like what we're spending billions on is fucking seed oils.

5:51That was our shot. Like, you had one shot to change how healthcare works in America, and the bullet you've towed to fire was seed oils? Do you know where it's actually like this mental hype? Because I've just seen it. I see it everywhere. Where did it start from? Well, I'm not going to answer that question. I know the answer, but I'm not going to, because it would involve name calling and putting it on people. I don't like to do that, positive or negative. That's something I never do, and I won't start that here today. Thanks so much for listening. To hear the full episode, there's a link in the description.