Is there a precautionary principle? Uh

if someone says, "You know what, Lane,

I've heard everything you've said. I

can't poke holes in it, but it just

why should I go out and eat seed oils?"

You know, um what what would you say to

that person?

>> I would say, okay, if you don't want to

consume seed oils, fine, but find

something to displace the saturated fat

in your diet with. So, uh, leaner cuts

of proteins of meats, um, you know,

lower saturated fat sources of protein.

And I guess, you know, while

monounsaturated fats don't seem to have

the same effect on LDL cholesterol as

polyunsaturated fats, they do lower it

when exchange for saturated fats. And

um, they do appear to be cardoprotective

to a certain extent. doesn't appear to

be as cardioctive as polyunsaturated

fats. But if you are concerned and

you're not going to listen to logic that

we've laid out here for three hours, um,

okay, try and find some monounsaturated

fats like olive oil, um, avocado oil.

There there's other sources of oils that

you could use that are still relatively

cardiorotive or beneficial.

And the other thing I think I I should I

didn't point this out when talked about

the processing. It should be pointed out

that this is this is unique in that when

oil when these oils are in a large

volume that the rate of oxidation is low

even with heating right uh and by the

way all the heating in the processing

these oils is done under a vacuum which

means there's no oxygen which means v

virtually no chance for oxidation even

when heated.

In restaurants, however, when you are

frying something, especially if you are

frying in a thin layer of oil, the

research shows like going from like a I

want to say it's like a 1 cm to like 5

cm of oil,

huge difference in how quickly oxidized

and u negative products will start to

form. And if you are having oil that you

are frying, reffrying in over and over

and over, yes, they're within

certainly with a thin layer, within 20

30 minutes, you can start to have

significant amounts of these negative

products accumulating.

And then if you have it in a vat and

it's being heated all day, yeah, you're

probably going to have significant comp

amount of oxidized trans fats. So, would

we be better off when it comes to

heating oil using lard? In other words,

if I'm going to have French fries,

should I at least have my French fries

made in lard as opposed to

polyunsaturated fat and seed oil?

>> So, here's what I'd say. Both are bad,

right?

>> Okay, but let's just say I understand

that French fries are hyper caloric and

let's just put that aside. I'm going to

have French fries sometimes, right? So,

when I do, do I want McDonald's going

back to lard or do I want them sticking

with whatever seed oil they're using?

>> That's kind of a hard question to

answer, right? Because again, it's you

have competing mechanisms at play here.

And if we don't have a like a human RCT

looking at frying with one way versus

frying with another way, and I'm not

aware of any, but maybe there will be

some. Maybe a young potential scientist

listening to this would want to do this.

Um but looking at okay what happens with

LDL and then the components of LDL

>> but you're answering this purely through

an LDL lens. Right. Right. Right.

>> Yeah. Is is there any other reason to

care? There must I just it just feels to

me intuitively that at least when you

heat up the saturated fat you're not

you're less likely to introduce more

ROSS and other things. And by the way,

if I can control my LDL through other

means pharmacologically, do I really

care about my saturated fat consumption?

>> Good question. So, we'll we'll we'll

touch on that here in a second. So,

yeah, the saturated fats less prone to

oxidation. Again, when we're looking at

balance, what's going to have the the

what's going to negatively affect

cardiovascular disease the most? I I

don't know. Um, what I would say is this

really is probably if you're going to

have French fries, just have the French

fries. And if you want to have it fried

in lard, okay, fine. Whatever. You can

decide what you want to do.

>> But you're basically saying don't don't

treat my fries in in lard as health

food.

>> No. And I think I think that that's

actually a really important point you

bring up

is you have to understand people think

food companies care about which foods

you buy. They just want you to buy. And

so the the kind of the pivot to, oh,

we're gonna have tallow or lard or

whatever. Food companies don't care.

Okay. Well, we'll just make those then.

That's fine. Oh, you don't like red dye

40? Yeah, we'll take that out and then

we'll market about how healthy our our

cereal is now, right? Oh, we're

marketing how healthy our French fries

are. And so the the danger becomes, not

that again, I think I think this really

only becomes a problem if you're like

consuming French fries pretty regularly,

right? And then we have to ask the

question, all right, which is worse out

of these two really bad options.

But when you're marketing as some kind

of victory, then okay, we're we're using

beef tallow or using lard or whatever it

is as opposed to seed oils. If you're

not having this sort of communication,

people the what they what they are going

to interpret that as is, oh, these are

actually healthier now. And so I'm just

I can eat more of them. And so I think

that's one thing I've realized as a

being so in tune with the public and and

you know reading comments on social

media over years and years and years. I

realize how if I'm not extremely careful

with how I word things, how

misinterpreted it can get. And so I I

think as communicators,

like in a format like this,

this is great. And when you say like how

do people navigate on social media,

that's where it's really tough because

it's not this, right? It's 30 seconds.

How can I hook somebody in? Five reasons

why seed oils are toxic, right? Like

that's going to get a lot of attention.

And they're going to list things that

there is an element of truth to every

single thing that they say, but they are

leaving out all of the context that we

just put multiple hours into covering,

right? And who's [snorts] going to I

mean, I hope this podcast gets listened

to by, you know, hundreds of millions of

people, but the likelihood is pretty

unlikely, right? Um, what's more likely

is somebody puts up a Tik Tok and it

goes viral and 10 million people see it.

And so I think it's very difficult

to communicate this stuff with the

public when it to them there are so many

mixed messages, right? And Peter, I hear

this all the time where people say, you

know, I don't trust scientific research

because one study says this and one

study says that and they all contradict

each other. And what I say to people is

I say, "Did you actually read the study

or are you just looking at the social

media hottakes?" Because my guess is

you're probably looking at the hot takes

because what we just did going into

those studies when they seemingly have a

weird outcome,

I can tell you almost any time, 99% of

the time when I've seen a headline or a

social media hottake on a study that I

go, "That doesn't make sense." and then

I go and read the actual study.

99 times out of 100 I walk out going,

"Oh, okay. I see why they found what

they found." Right? Either the way the

control group was designed or um the the

difference in levels between groups or

or or whatever. My PhD adviser used to

say, "If I wanted to design a study to

show no effect or the study to show an

effect, easiest thing in the world." And

so again, this is why we look at

converging lines of evidence. We look at

what does all the evidence state and

what do the most high quality, most

rigorously controlled studies find. And

so

yes, there are elements of truth to the

criticisms of seed oils.

But on balance, when we look at these

hard outcomes, when we look at what we

are very sure we know to be true,

again, you can never I think one of the

things to point out in science, you can

never prove anything, right? Like we can

only disprove things, but we can have

relative degrees of confidence in

various data, right?

And

I would say

I have a relatively high degree of

confidence that apo containing

lipoproteins are aogenic based on

everything I've read, the converging

lines of data, especially the mandelian

randomization studies, especially the

statin trials.

I feel relatively confident about it.

Now, could I change my mind? Sure. But

it would take a lot of data over a long

period of time. Right now, you asked one

question I want to circle back to. Why

care about nutrition if you can just

control this with statins? Right. Or

Yeah. No, that that was in the context,

I think, of uh why care about the effect

on LDL if you can pharmacologically

regulate that anyway and therefore

should we be focused on other potential

negative health benefits in the case of

the frying? That was really my question.

>> Oh, I see what you're saying. So, so

let's take care of the LDL piece and

then now oxidation or or aldahhides or

whatnot become more important. That's a

>> it I was asking that specifically in the

context of the frying oils.

>> That makes sense. Yeah. and

[clears throat] cooking.

>> And so, yeah, I don't have a great

answer for that because like

I think one of the other frustrations

with the general public is

when we put out limitations of studies,

you know, you and I know like we're not

necessarily saying, "Hey, these

researchers are idiots. They did it

wrong. They should have done it this

way." Every study has limitations. every

single study that's ever been done in

the history of mankind. There is no

unifying study that explains the entire

universe. Right? So pointing out

limitations is not necessarily saying

that a study is bad. It's just pointing

out, okay, we got to be careful how much

interpretation we give to this, right?

How how broadly we interpret it. And

yes, there are studies that are more

well-designed, well conducted, that have

more statistical power, that are um that

have better measurements, and scientists

try to account for that when they look

at, okay, how much weight am I going to

give to something?

But

again, at the end of the day, if I have

to give a recommendation for people on

this stuff, I would say

when it comes to seed oils, if you don't

want to consume them, okay, I would just

say try to limit your saturated fat,

eat enough fiber, but outside of that,

there's so many bigger levers that you

can pull for your health than just

worrying about seed oils. You know, I I

put up a a thing a while back. I said

the average calorie consumption in the

United States is 3,500 calories per day,

and the average physical activity is

less than 20 minutes per day.

>> And you're spending all this time

worrying about what your fries get fried

in,

>> right? Not you specifically, but just

people in general, right?

>> It's like we're we're stepping over $100

bills picking up pennies, you know? And

so I again I'm not saying don't worry

about the little stuff but you got to

keep it in context of what really is

driving so much disease in the developed

countries. And a lot of it really is an

energy toxicity issue.

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