Thinking of Replacing Your Seed Oils? Read This First

It is wise to care about what you put in your body. A balanced, highly nutritious diet can have big impacts on many aspects of health, including fertility, chronic disease prevention, better mood, and more. As a HAES-aligned dietitian who helps people improve the quality of their diets, I fully believe all of this. It’s natural to question ingredients in our complex food system when we care about health and wellness, so I understand why seed oils have come under scrutiny.

In our mainstream media landscape, thinness still gets equated with health, and fear-based headlines drive traffic, no matter the source. So when everyday foods like seed oils are suddenly branded “toxic,” it’s worth pausing to see what the science actually says. In this article, I’m going to look into the science (and pseudoscience), and the practical implications of this hysteria about seeds oils and their alternatives. I want to help you make food and health choices you feel freaking great about.  

What Are Seed Oils? 

Great question, I’m so glad you asked. Seeds oils are just vegetable oils that are made from the seeds of plants. Here are some examples:

• canola oil (also known as rapeseed)
• sunflower oil
• soybean oil
• corn oil
• cotton seeds
• grapeseed oil
• safflower oil 

These seed oils are high in polyunsaturated fat, as opposed to avocado oil and olive oil, which are higher in monounsaturated fat, and coconut oil, palm oil, beef tallow, butter, and other animal fats, which are high in saturated fat. Just to remind you, diets high in saturated fat continue to be found a bit risky for heart health. I’d pay even closer attention to this if you have high cholesterol or a family history of heart disease.

Are Seed Oils Safe? 

The short answer is yes. In fact, a ton of research shows that seed oils are not only safe, but are actually beneficial for health since they help prevent high cholesterol and cardiovascular disease, a leading cause of mortality in our country. Nearly all health organizations agree on this. Near full agreement! We almost never see that in nutrition research, so that’s pretty cool actually. 

On the other hand, highly processed foods like hot dogs, fast food, twinkies, and other shelf-stable baked foods (hello, mini muffins) are made with high quantities of these oils. And as a whole, these foods are not good for our bodies. They lack fiber, phytonutrients, and protein and are made primarily of sugar, salt, and flour. But it’s not exactly the “seed oils” that make them unhealthy for you. It’s the food as a whole and the quantity of them you consume.

The dose makes the poison. (even though I really don’t like to use the word poison, you get my point)

While it’s true that many highly processed foods aren’t great for us, that does not mean that every ingredient in them is “bad” or that cutting them out entirely is the right thing to do. 

If your diet consists of ultra-processed foods solely, yes I hope you can make some shifts to include more whole foods that have fiber, vitamins, minerals, and protein and less sugar, salt, and fat. But cooking with canola oil or vegetable oil is perfectly fine. You don’t have to fear dining out once or twice a week, no matter what oils they are using.

If Seed Oils Are Safe, Why Are So Many People Saying They’re Not?! 

First off, I totally understand why you’d be worried about seed oils. You want to take good care of your health and make sure you’re feeding yourself and your children healthy food. Even some doctors and health “influencers” are on their soapbox about the dangers of consuming ANY of these seed oils, and insisting you find alternatives if you want to live a long life. But the thing is, they’re just backing their claims with cherry-picked science and scary headlines.

Once of the main red flags in this type of bold claim is that nutrition science is rarely certain. Like any good dietitian, I’ll change my stance if good evidence comes out proving that seed oils are dangerous to health. But as of now, the science just isn’t there.

Alarmism sells

There are people making huge amounts of money off of our collective food anxiety. There is even an app that will charge you a monthly fee to make sure the restaurants you go to do not have any seed oil. This type of “investigation” fuels more fear.

the trend of demonizing seed oils and exaggerating the “harm” they cause in the body seems to have stemmed from a few factors: 

1. The rise of “clean eating” diets such as Whole 30 and an emphasis on ancestral eating styles (such as paleo) got popular due to social media and “natural” bloggers. 
2. The popularity of biohackers and optimizing-bros. Podcasting doctors like Paul Saladino, “The Carnivore MD”, ranted about unfounded theories about linoleic acid and oxidative stress. He took research about biochemical mechanisms and made claims that sounded scientific but weren’t really evidence-based. Thanks, doc. These kinds of fear-based headlines reach millions of people. 
3. All of these messages gained a lot of traction during Covid-19, as we were all holed up in our houses, freaking out about how to not get sick.

This fits into a larger trend toward healthism. This happens when one feels that health is a moral virtue and so making “clean” choices is seen as superior. Healthism also lies to us and makes us believe that if we just avoid the ‘right’ ingredients or follow the ‘right’ food rules, we’ll achieve perfect health. Sadly, this is not reality.

This mindset ignores the complex social and environmental factors that influence wellbeing, instead placing all responsibility on individual food choices like which cooking oil to use. It’s nonsense.

The truth is there is no good evidence that seed oils do anything dangerous in our bodies, and they’re no less healthy than other cooking oils, so you do not need to find healthier alternatives. You can keep using them!

The recent hysteria around seed oils being “toxic” is a perfect example of how diet culture and wellness culture are risks for disordered eating.

This black-and-white thinking about food – where ingredients are categorized as either “pure” or “toxic” – is about anxiety about food purity rather than evidence-based science. It can easily lead to or go hand-in-hand with other restrictive eating behaviors and an unhealthy obsession with “clean eating.”

The thing is – I totally get it! Of course we want simple solutions to complex health and societal problems. But in this case, we want to look at the science.

How Avoiding Seed Oils Can Harm Your Relationship With Food

It’s important that you do not fear seed oils, not only because they are fine to consume in regular quantities, but also because creating strict rules about food can harm your relationship with food. When we start insisting on alternatives to seed oils, it can create a ripple effect, causing more anxiety, hyper-vigilance, and sometimes even reduced nutrient intake.

If you find yourself avoiding restaurants because they use vegetable oil, say no to dinner at friends’ houses, or obsessing over nutrition labels, your world shrinks. Social isolation, food anxiety, and rigid eating patterns should be seen as disordered eating.

Orthorexia is an eating disorder characterized by extreme fear and preoccupation with clean eating. Orthorexia is gaining in prevalence in recent years and as someone who works with this population, it is pretty clear to me that messaging like “seed oils are toxic” is fueling the fire.

The mental energy spent worrying about cooking oils could be better used enjoying meals with loved ones or listening to your body’s needs. A healthy relationship with food includes flexibility and peace with all ingredients, including common cooking oils.

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What Are The Benefits Of Seed Oils?

To help dispel the myths, I figured I’d take a dive into the research about the processing and health implications of these oils. These vegetable oils are typically polyunsaturated fats, specifically omega-6 fatty acids (linoleic acid), which is considered an essential fatty acid. Our body needs to get these from food because it cannot make it. 

What linoleic acids (remember, a seed oil) does in our body: 

• Forms part of cell membranes, which helps with structure and fluidity
• Important part of our inflammation response (remember inflammation is crucial for any kind of healing in your body)
• Helps your blood clot
• Skin and muscle integrity
• Immune response
• Blood pressure management

It’s true there is a “good” amount and that many folks get too much of this type of oil in their diet. But that does not mean we need to cut them out, and it definitely does not mean we need to replace our cooking oils with beef tallow. 

Cardiovascular research consistently shows that replacing saturated fats (like those found in beef and pork) with polyunsaturated fats (found in seed oils) reduces cardiovascular disease risk. 

Simplifying Seed Oil Processing

Seeds oils are made by first cleaning and crushing the vegetable seeds, then either pressing them or using a food-grade solvent (such as hexane) to extract the oil – similar to how we use alcohol to extract vanilla for vanilla extract. 

The oil then goes through standard food industry purification: removing impurities with clay (like filtering water), neutralizing excess acids (like in cheese making), and using steam to remove unwanted flavors (similar to distilling water). 

These processes have been used safely for decades and are regulated by our wonderful food safety agencies. Any trace processing aids like hexane are removed well below levels of concern, which is why major health organizations worldwide consider these oils safe for regular consumption. Yay! 

How Your Body Uses Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids

Our body needs both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids from our diets. Over the past 20 years, there has been a lot of research on finding the right balance with these two oils, but it turns out that the best thing to do is just increase your omega-3 intake, rather than worry about cutting down on omega-6’s. 

Here are the recommended minimum amounts of polyunsaturated fatty acids to prevent deficiency: 

Omega-3 fatty acids (from fatty fish, walnuts, flax seeds)

• 1.6 grams/day for men
• 1.1 grams/day for women

Omega-6 fatty acids (from a variety of seeds, nuts, and seed oils)

• 7 grams/day for men
• 12 grams/day for women

What Cooking Oils Should We Be Using?

Cooking at home is a super healthy choice, both for your budget and for your nutrient intake. Seed oils are safe, affordable, and much healthier choices than cooking with butter, bacon grease, and tallow on a regular basis. 

I’m not saying that you should eliminate those things either. But please do not throw out your canola oil for lard. Not a smart choice. 

The key is balance, not eliminating anything and not “not caring” about your health.

Benefits of Avocado Oil

• high in monounsaturated fats (similar to olive oil)
• high smoke point, good for high-heat cooking
• mild flavor – great for a range of different flavor combinations (unlike olive oil which has a stronger taste)
• pricey
• sometimes it’s less processed (can be cold-pressed)

Benefits of Seed Oil

• higher in polyunsaturated fats (including essential fatty acids)
• various smoke points depending on the oil (most are high)
• mild flavors
• more affordable
• research shows heart health benefits when replacing saturated fats

While folks who are consuming large amounts of omega-6 fats may benefit from reducing them somewhat in favor of olive oil or avocado oil, this does not mean that you should cut them out entirely or that they’re harmful in any quantity. It may be wise not to rely too much on fried from from chain and fast food restaurants, as they often re-use their frying oil and that oil MAY BE seed oil. Again, not saying you need to cut these foods out entirely, just to enjoy them sometimes, instead of daily.

The solution isn’t to swing to the other extreme by completely replacing seed oils with avocado oil or saturated fats. Go for the grey and aim to add a variety of cooking oils.

Use olive oil for low heat and salad dressing. Use canola oil for high heat cooking and baking. Use avocado oil (if you can afford it) and if you want. It’s good for you too!

Also focus on getting fats from whole foods like avocados, whole fat dairy, nuts, seeds, and olives. Having a limited amount of saturated fat in your diet is also fine, if you like to eat animal products.  

Remember that traditional diets around the world have used a variety of fat sources for centuries, and this diversity supports overall gut health. The goal is to find a sustainable, practical approach that works for you, not to create new food fears or strict rules about which oils are “good” or “bad.”

Final Thoughts On Seed Oil

I hope you found this helpful and it eased your mind about the safety and usefulness of seed oils. If you want me in your pocket so you can always ask me questions like this and get personalized tips on your relationship with food, join my program Love Food Again, or read about working with me 1-1. 

Thank you for reading! Do you have any questions or comments? I’d love to hear them below.

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