The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025-2030 suggests cooking with olive oil, butter, or beef tallow. They also recommend limiting saturated fat to 10% of calories, consistent with past Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Our programs support the Mediterranean eating pattern as a diet that offers protection from several chronic illnesses including heart disease and diabetes. Thus, we also support using olive oil as your go-to fat for cooking. What do you do, however, if you need a more neutral oil for a salad dressing or cooking? The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025-2030 don’t mention other fats.
It is with some surprise that seed oils were not mentioned in the new guidelines as they have been maligned recently as something to completely avoid. Let’s take a closer look at seed oils and the controversy that surrounds them.
First, what are seed oils? Avocado, palm, and olive oil come from the plant (fruit). All other oils are seed oils. This includes canola (from rapeseed), sunflower, grapeseed, soybean, even almond and walnut since nuts are also seeds. Oil labeled vegetable oil is most often a blend of canola, soybean, and or corn oil.
Canola oil is often singled out as the most dangerous oil. Many include in their argument that Europe has banned this oil. This is not true. While you will not find canola oil in the list of ingredients in foods in Europe, it is not because it has been banned, it is because they use the name rapeseed oil instead. Canola is a trade name and is short for Canadian oil.
A concern about seed oils is the way they are processed. Oils are indeed processed, all oils are, seed and non-seed. There has to be a process to get the oil from the plant or seed. Further, they have to be refined to remove impurities and create a palatable oil that is less likely to spoil and can be used at high heat without the risk of burning. Some oils (olive included) use the chemical hexane to achieve the level of processing needed to purify the oil. Most of hexane is removed during the processing. Trace amounts may remain; however, they are dissipated as soon as the oil is heated. If you are concerned about the trace amount of hexane, choose organic, unrefined, or cold pressed oils. By law, they will not be processed using hexane. However, the amount of hexane in oil is so low or even undetected and has not been shown to cause harm.
Anti seed oil advocates often cite that seed oils increase inflammation. Study after study, including randomized trials, show time and time again this is not true. They are often looking at animal studies or studies that have been done in the lab in test tubes. Studies with humans do not show that seed oils have an inflammatory effect on the body. We know that the essential fatty acid linoleic acid, when converted to arachidonic acid, can be a precursor to inflammation. However, the conversion of linoleic acid to arachidonic acid is very low in humans. In fact, there is much evidence from the past 30 plus years that seed oils do not increase inflammation.
It is clear that when you dig a bit deeper past YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram the vilification of seed oils is not warranted. There is simply little to no evidence that consuming seed oils is harmful to human health. The recommendation to substitute polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat for saturated fat is supported by literally tens of thousands of studies that indicate their protective effect for heart disease and type 2 diabetes making olive oil AND seed oils a healthy choice.
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