The Real Health Podcast

Are seed oils actually toxic… or is the internet oversimplifying the conversation?
In this episode of the Real Health Podcast, Dr. Barrett breaks down the science behind seed oils, omega-3 vs omega-6 balance, inflammation, oxidized oils, and why processed foods may be the bigger issue. You’ll also learn which oils are best for cooking, which oils should NEVER be heated, and the surprising seed oils that can actually support your health.
Topics covered:
  • The truth about canola oil & processed foods
  • Omega-6 vs omega-3 explained simply
  • Why inflammation matters
  • Best oils for cooking
  • Oils to avoid at restaurants
  • Healthy seed oils that may surprise you
  •  Extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil & more
. . . 
Watch the episode on YouTube here!
  • (00:00) - Intro
  • (01:11) - Seed Oils Overview
  • (02:02) - What are Seed Oils?
  • (03:20) - Omega-3s & Omega-6s
  • (06:07) - 1st Issue: Underconsumption
  • (06:43) - 2nd Issue: Heat Damage
  • (08:58) - Common Myths
  • (09:14) - Myth: All Seed Oils Are Bad
  • (13:13) - Closing Thoughts

DISCLAIMER
This content is strictly the opinion of Dr. Barrett Deubert and is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to replace medical advice or treatment from a physician. All viewers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding health questions and concerns. Neither Dr. Deubert nor the Real Health Co. takes responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading or following the information in this educational content. All audience members, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement, or lifestyle program.

Creators and Guests

Host
Dr. Barrett Deubert
The founder of The Real Health Co. and the host of The Real Health Podcast, Dr. Barrett is passionate about helping people find true and complete health in any stage of life!
Editor
Grant Crenshaw
Content Producer at the Real Health Co.

What is The Real Health Podcast?

On a mission to share practical solutions to improve your wellbeing, The Real Health Podcast will equip you with evidence-based recommendations essential to achieving a healthy lifestyle. Join Dr. Barrett Deubert as he shares his passion for educating, inspiring, and empowering individuals to achieve “real health for real people”. Breaking down health topics such as: immunity, stress, real food, natural living, and much more to provide you with actionable steps to improving your family’s health.

Dr. Barrett:

So we got canola oil sitting in a bag of nasty potato chips. Right? It's sprayed with a bunch of chemicals. We see the seed oil is put in processed snacks and foods and bars and and added with sugar and preservatives. And then now we've got a just a recipe of inflammation and disaster.

Dr. Barrett:

And this is where our chronic health issues are. It's not just the seed oil. It's not just the omega six to three content. Fundamentally, it's how it's packaged and put together in our food industry. And so the reality is that all seed oils are inherently not bad.

Dr. Barrett:

Welcome back to another episode of the Real Health Podcast. This mic, Grant, by the way, it just smells so good, man. It smells like a little bonfire. I know he takes it out on the weekend and takes it around the campfire and it just smells good anyway. We're today talking about something that's super, I don't know if it's controversial or it's just relevant.

Dr. Barrett:

Maybe it's even just misunderstood, but we're talking about seed oils today. And here's the question. Are seed oils actually bad for you? So that's the question. Are they toxic?

Dr. Barrett:

Do are they overblown? Should we be concerned about seed oils? Are they actually healthy? Are there some seed oils actually healthy? And let me just cut to the chase.

Dr. Barrett:

There are, and you've gotta state to the end of this podcast to know which ones are because they are healthy. There are some seed oils that we should be consuming, and this will surprise you. But we're gonna talk about what oils, you should really be using and which ones are inherently bad. But, also, we're gonna talk about the processing of oils and why they're inherently bad as a whole. So let's just dive in.

Dr. Barrett:

Let's get to it. I'm excited about today's episode. So what are seed oils? Seed oils are really in industrially industrialized processed oils that are extracted from, obviously, from seeds. Right?

Dr. Barrett:

So the common examples are soybean, canola, corn oil, cottonseed oil, safflower, sunflower, grapeseed oil, rice bran oil, those would be the common examples. And these oils really have exploded in our food supply in the last hundred years. Today, they're everywhere. They're in restaurants, fried foods, packaged goods, They're in chips, and they're even in bars. You'll see them in bars quite a bit.

Dr. Barrett:

Most people would associate them with fast food in restaurants. But when you start getting into it and you see, for instance, canola oil, it's also known as rapeseed oil, but canola oil, you're going see it in everything. They it it is used at a very high level and it's used because of how cheap, it's being made. So what's the issue with seed oils? Let's start kind of big picture here.

Dr. Barrett:

Oil is fundamentally a type, is made up of fat. And the main two fats within oils we're gonna talk about today for all purposes is omega-three and omega-six oils. Now, if we look at how our body's engineered, the ratio of omega 6s to omega 3s should be anywhere between one to one ratio or even maybe as high as four or five to one. That is the ratio of omega 6s to omega 3s. So the ratio in today's society, the way we consume nutritionally, the ratio of omega-6s that we're consuming versus the amount of omega-3s we're consuming are just significantly more than five to one.

Dr. Barrett:

I mean, we're 20 to one, thirty to one, fifty to one, or even higher. So that means there's 50 parts of omega-six per one part of omega-three. What's the big issue? What's the problem here? If you look at cell health so the membrane of a cell let's take a brain cell, for instance.

Dr. Barrett:

The outer layer of that membrane, they call it a bilipid membrane, It is composed of both omega threes and omega sixes. Omega sixes provide rigidity to the cell membrane, so structure support. Omega threes provide fluidity. There should be a balanced ratio of a six sixes and threes to provide for proper construction of the cell. When there's too high of omega sixes, the cells are too rigid, and they really can't get nutrients in and out properly.

Dr. Barrett:

They're just creates a chronic inflammatory problem. And omega threes, on the other hand, you can actually overdose in omega threes and create too much fluidity. You can actually thin your blood too much and create major harm by just taking two thousand milligrams omega-3s because you saw that was good and you've been taking it for the last five years. It may not be good for you, and it's important to know that fish oil can cause danger and harm to your body if consumed too much. And so can omega-6s.

Dr. Barrett:

So the biggest concern is not seed oils. It's the omega-six content that is commonly overloaded in seed oils. And so too much omega-six is chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, oxidative stress. We see it with the actual blood vessels, we call it the endothelial lining, it gets destroyed and inflamed. And inherently, this is our biggest issue.

Dr. Barrett:

It's not cholesterol. It's usually inflammation associated with high omega-six to three ratio. And so omega six is really important to understand. It's not inherently evil. It's the ratio imbalance that we're currently seeing in our diet today because of our low omega three content.

Dr. Barrett:

Where does omega threes come off? Grass fed beef, wild caught cold water fish, right, sardines, for instance, salmon, flax seeds. That's where we're getting a lot of our omega threes, but we're not consuming a ton of it. So that's the first problem. The second problem is omega sixes or seed oils, they are vulnerable to oxidation and heat damage.

Dr. Barrett:

When you buy this bottle of seed oil and it's got a clear container and the sun and light hits it, it can get oxidatively damaged, heat damaged, UV light damaged, and it actually changes the structure of that particular oil or fat. So many seed oils, when they're exposed to heat, light, and and and and oxygen are easily damaged, and this creates what we call oxidative or oxidized lipid molecules. This is a major issue and fundamentally one of the biggest drivers of inflammation is chronically oxidated chronic consumption of oxidative lipids. We've got an issue here. This is a core cause problem behind any type of heart disease, high cholesterol, and inflammation.

Dr. Barrett:

And it's especially problematic when we're deep frying and we're looking at reheated restaurant oils and fast food fryers. This is where we're getting a lot of this majorly heat damaged oil. And these oxidative oils can contributes to high LDL oxidation, which is a problem, vascular blood vessel inflammation, which is a problem, again heart disease, Alzheimer's dementia precursor, mitochondrial stress. So we wanna make sure we're consuming, if we are consuming any seed oils, they're in the right form and they're the right type. So we have seed oils that then inserted in are inserted into a high processed food item, and now we've got a double whammy.

Dr. Barrett:

So we got canola oil sitting in a bag of nasty potato chips, right? That's sprayed with a bunch of chemicals. We see the seed oil is put in processed snacks and foods and bars and and added with sugar and preservatives. And then now we've got a just a recipe of inflammation and disaster. And this is where our chronic health issues are.

Dr. Barrett:

It's not just the seed oil. It's not just the omega six to three content. Fundamentally, it's how it's packaged and put together in our food industry. And so the reality is that all seed oils are inherently not bad. This is gonna break some myths.

Dr. Barrett:

You shouldn't avoid all seed oils. Let me give you some examples. There are better seed oils that are minimally minimally processed, cold pressed, not overheated, and and fundamentally are stable and good for you when used in moderation. What's one of them? One of my favorites, flaxseed oil.

Dr. Barrett:

Flaxseed oil is very high in omega-3s. It is anti inflammatory in nature, and it is great when it's cold pressed and served cold on salads or made into dressings. You never heat flaxseed oil because of how unstable it is. You don't wanna heat it, or you never wanna buy flaxseed oil when it's a when it's in a, like, a clear glass container. Another fantastic seed oil that's high in omega three content is hemp seed oil.

Dr. Barrett:

We use hemp seed oil quite a bit. It's got a great omega balance. It's rich in nutrients. It's healthy fats, and it's great for cold applications again. And then there is a type of, sunflower oil we call high oleic sunflower oil.

Dr. Barrett:

And this is really important. The differentiator here is the high oleic component because it's higher in monounsaturated fat, which is a saturate which is a type of unsaturated fat we're not getting in our diet on a regular basis, and it's way more stable than sunflower oil by itself. And so when we look at these four seed oils, these should be consumed. You don't wanna avoid yes, you wanna avoid canola oil and you wanna avoid peanut oil. That makes sense.

Dr. Barrett:

But don't avoid all seed oils. And when you look at these four seed oils, they're very healthy for you. What are some other oils beneficial? So if those are some healthy seed oils, there are other oils that are just king. And then and the king of all oils to me is extra virgin olive oil.

Dr. Barrett:

Extra virgin or EVOO is a full of polyphenols. It's anti inflammatory, tons of antioxidants, cardiovascular protective, brain protective, and it just has longevity data. And it just helps you live longer. So my suggestion would absolutely be that we need to be consuming more extra virgin olive oil, and it's got the strongest human evidence overall for longevity. And it should be consumed cold, cold pressed.

Dr. Barrett:

It shouldn't be consumed heated. It is unstable, so we wanna make sure that we're not heating it. So let me give you heated oil. What's a great oil to use at home that could be heated? And that would be avocado oil.

Dr. Barrett:

Avocado oil is very stable when heated. So it's got some high heat adaptability and it's high in monounsaturated fat, which is what you're looking for. It's stable and it's great for cooking. You just wanna make sure you're watching out for cheap blends, and just look for that organic label. I think that's important.

Dr. Barrett:

Another great, stable oil would be coconut oil. Right? It's controversial because it's saturated fat, and there's only a small percentage of the population genetically that doesn't handle saturated fats well. But generally speaking, coconut oil is a fantastic fat that should be consumed. If if if you have no genetic predisposition to saturated fat induced, heart disease.

Dr. Barrett:

Another great fat is grass fed butter or ghee. This is a fantastic cooking oil, but you can obviously consume it cold as well. Great balance between omega threes and omega sixes. It's got fat soluble vitamins in it, so a d e k. It's it's full of butyrate, butyric acid, which is great for the gut as well.

Dr. Barrett:

And, again, quality matters here. So those are some key fats that we keep in the house. We keep in olive oil, avocado oils, coconut oil, and and typically butter or ghee, in abundance, and we really never go without those. And so what do we actually avoid? Right?

Dr. Barrett:

So kind of summarizing everything, that's what we should be consuming, and we don't want to avoid all seed oils. So what should we avoid? Fryer oils. That's what we should avoid. Cheap fast food oils.

Dr. Barrett:

We should avoid ultra processed foods, highly oxidized oils, oil stored in clear plastic bottles. You know those oils are gonna be damaged. They're not healthy. If you see either even even clear glass containers that are containing an extra virgin olive oil, don't buy it. That's why a lot of them are green and dark colored to prevent light oxidation.

Dr. Barrett:

And then and then repeated high heat, heated restaurant grease. I mean, it's just damaging to your body. Even if they say it's cooked in a type of oil that may be more beneficial, it's not when it's reheated and heated at that type of temperature. And when we look at it fundamentally, we gotta balance all these oils with higher omega-three content through wild salmon, sardines, avocados, grass fed beef, eggs, walnuts. We're gonna get some of these omega threes to balance things out.

Dr. Barrett:

So practical takeaways, focus more on whole foods, more omega three content, less ultra processed foods. The best oils to consume are gonna be your olive oil, coconut oil, flaxseed oil, butter, ghee. And, you know, when it comes to some reasonable seed oils, you can look at hemp. You can look at sesame or high oleic sunflower. You don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Dr. Barrett:

Some of these are actually beneficial, but the worst offenders are gonna be those fried oils that everyone loves and those ultra processed foods. So just be mindful there. And as always, you're not gonna avoid completely, but you can start thinking about your food differently. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Real Health Podcast.