In nutritional truth,  not all vegetables oils are created equal. The vegetable oils in this context refer to oils extracted from seeds, grains and legumes including soybean oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, canola oil, peanut oil, rice bran oil, grape seed oil, and cottonseed oil.

Vegetable oils, while nearly nonexistent a hundred years ago, now account for approximately 20% of  our caloric intake.  Food manufacturers who use these cheap oils for their commercial goods, have utilized it in nearly every packaged food product on the grocery shelf and fast food restaurant add them to the meals we eat, so expect to find them in just about everything from oat milk, tortilla chips, margarine and mayonnaise to Subway’s breads, Domino’s pizza crust and Chipotle’s rice.

Unfortunately, as  consumption of these cheap vegetable oils have grown, so have  the rates of obesity, cancer, and diabetes and recent studies are indicating there is a correlation between consuming these vegetable oils and devastating consequences on our wellbeing.

In the Sydney Diet-Heart Study, researchers separated study participants into two groups. Both groups consumed the same amount of fat and oil, but the first group’s fat came primarily from vegetable oil sources like safflower oil and margarine while the second group’s fat came from sources like olive oil and butter. Everything else about their diets and lifestyles remained unchanged.

Both groups were monitored and evaluated regularly for the next seven years.  The group consuming more seed vegetable oil had a 62% higher rate of death during the seven-year study compared to the group eating less seed vegetable oil.

In another study, the Minnesota Coronary Experiment, participants who increased their consumption of corn oil and margarine had 86% more heart attacks, and for those aged 65 or older, a higher risk of death after four years.

Inflammation

As the food industry began to refine cooking oils, the omega-6 fats in these oils created a drastic imbalance in the modern diet, making us more vulnerable to diseases such as heart disease and cancer proving the adage of we are what we eat holds true.

When consuming subpar fats in these inexpensive oils, your cell walls also become subpar.  So instead of being flexible and responsive to intercellular communication, cell walls become stiff and rigid.  The more rigid the walls, the slower the cell functions and the more vulnerable the body becomes to inflammation. And while  intermittent increases in inflammation are critical for survival during physical injury and infection,  research revealed that certain social, environmental and lifestyle factors can promote systemic chronic inflammation (SCI) that can, in turn, lead to several diseases that collectively.