We recommend you steer clear of seed and vegetable oils on the Defeat Diabetes Program. But why?
Dr Paul Mason explains the science behind these oils, their damage to the body when you cook with them, and the foods you should avoid if you want to keep your body healthy.
Dr Peter Brukner: Paul, tell us about seed oils or vegetable oils?
Dr Paul Mason: Seed oils are one of the major problems that we have with processed foods today, Peter. They're found in nearly every processed food that you can get from the supermarket. Most commonly we know them as things like canola oilm rice bran oil, safflower oil but there's dozens. And the big problem we have with them is that they contain polyunsaturated fats - and polyunsaturated fats are very unstable chemically they're prone to something called oxidative damage and if we ingest oils that are oxidized that can damage our liver, and contribute to insulin resistance and a whole raft of health consequences.
Dr Peter Brukner: So what is oxidation?
Dr Paul Mason: Well, oxidation basically refers to a process of chemical damage so it's to do with something called reactive oxygen species. But at the end of the day, all you need to know is that oxidized oils are bad for our health.
Dr Peter Brukner: But I thought polyunsaturated oils were essential?
Dr Paul Mason: Well absolutely, they are. And what essential means is that if we don't ingest them we actually have serious health consequences. The problem is when we ingest polyunsaturated fats in the form of oil, we get this oxidative damage as well. Whereas if we actually get the polyunsaturated fats from fresh food - things like poultry and fish, and meat and eggs, then so long as that food is fresh, then the oils won't be oxidized and will actually derive health benefit from them. The easy way to think about it is that when a food goes off or rancid it's due to oxidation of the fats within that food. So long as you're eating fresh food that's not off, then you'll be getting non-oxidized healthy polyunsaturated fats.
Dr Peter Brukner: So basically, we need to go back to the way that our parents and grandparents used to cook using butter and lard and tallow and dripping instead of these industrial produced seed oils that this generation is using.
