Okay, so

let's consider something else though,

which is

for me to get a bottle of

corn oil

or any of the other seed oils on your

table, I have to do a lot of industrial

processing.

I have to heat these things up. I have

to refine these oils.

Um I have to use industrial grade

solvents to extract them.

Um

it seems very likely that

both of those processes can contribute

to the negative impact of them

independent of what we might see if we

were talking about something pure,

right? In other words,

everything [snorts] we've talked about

so far is assuming a pure form of

linoleic acid. But what if I'm now

saying, yeah, but I'm going to heat,

reheat, cool,

you know, bastardize this molecule and

oh, by the way, I'm not going to be able

to get all the hexane off this molecule

and I needed to use hexane to extract

it, right? This is This is how we

People, you know, we don't like to talk

about it, but but food processing is

big, you know, it's it's big industrial

chemistry. Right. And and what I would

say is the actual processing of the seed

oils

removes oxidants and removes some

impurities that are maybe negative. Um

there are some things that do increase

and we'll we'll talk about that. But

let's let's let's start with the hexane

itself. So

to get the oils out of these seeds, you

need to either do mechanical or chemical

extraction. Now, I think most people

would say, well, I'd rather have the

mechanical extraction, right? Because

less chemicals, but it is much more

costly, the yield is lower,

um and economics is a thing.

>> Is that an opportunity? Can you go into

a grocery store and choose to have, you

know, safflower oil that was

mechanically extracted versus chemically

extracted? I actually have no clue, but

I I would imagine there are probably

places that do sell it. Um you know, and

You just pay more for it, but For sure.

For sure. Um

so let's talk about why hexane is used.

So they take these seeds, they wash them

with hexane. Why hexane? Well, hexane is

a nonpolar solvent. And when you're

dealing with oil,

you know, polar solvents are much more

popular because most things or most

things that we try to get are polar.

Most things like to interact with water.

Makes sense based on our biology and our

biochemistry.

Oils are different. Oils you have to do

very unique things to. Hexane is a

nonpolar solvent, so it will mix with

these oils.

And it has a relatively low boiling

point, so you can evaporate it off.

Okay, so these seeds get washed with

this hexane, it extracts the crude oil.

So now you've got the oil mixed with

hexane.

Well, now they bubble steam vapor

through the oil and that evaporates off

the hexane. Now, I will tell you that

the

the steam and the temperature is pretty

low. In order to really start getting

oxidation of seed oils, it depends on

the oil specifically,

but most of them you got to be well over

200° C and you've got to do it for

hours. So as if we're talking about in

like a large vat, right?

I think I I think I read like soybean

oil if you heat it at like 240° C

for like 3 hours,

you will start to get

like 8%

of the oil being oxidized.

But even after like 5 hours, it's still

pretty small percentage points of

oxidation. And this process of removing

the hexane is on the order of minutes or

an hour, 90 minutes. Like it's a pretty

short period of time. And hexane's

boiling point is I believe it's 69° C,

so you only got to heat it up to a

point, you know, a little bit above that

to start getting it off.

Now,

okay, can you get all of it off?

Well, as we anybody who's had basic

chemistry, you know that no compound you

synthesize is 100% pure. I mean, you can

get 99.999%

but you always have residual atoms in

there. You always have residual

molecules in there.

So the question becomes, all right, how

much hexane is in the end product?

And how much is required to cause harm?

The hexane in the end product,

most of them are well under one part per

million. In fact, a lot of them have

nondetectable levels of hexane, which

means there's probably some in there,

but the instruments we have to measure

it simply aren't sensitive enough to

pick that out.

So

the amount of hexane in these thing in

these oils,

I believe uh

the research paper I read was anywhere

from 0.05 to 0.5 parts per million for

most of these oils.

Hexane specifically, the danger with

hexane is not from ingestion. It's

actually from inhalation. So people who

have had, you know, toxicity from

hexane, it's from inhaling it.

When you actually look at how much you

hexane you'd have to get

to

like I don't even know if they've I I I

tried to look up hexane poisoning cases

where somebody died, it doesn't exist.

There's a case where a guy drank like

literally drank straight hexane and

basically got a tummy ache.

Um they've done rodent studies where

they were able to get toxicity and

death,

but

basically

they had to just to get mild liver and

neurotoxicity,

it was 5,000 mg per kilogram of body

weight. Now, when we do human equivalent

dosage, um that dosage becomes smaller.

But let me just put it in perspective as

a bottom line. I did the calculation on

this.

What you would need to consume from

hexane to even have mild

side effects,

what you would need to consume is 11,340

kg of oil at one time. Okay, but

that's to die. How do we know that

>> was for mild side effects.

>> Okay, but how do we know that that mild

or that accumulation of hexane

or some other industrial solvent

couldn't be leading to a chronic

process. We've just talked about how

>> Yep. all the diseases we care about,

whether it be neurodegenerative

diseases, which, you know, or cancer or

cardiovascular disease, these things

don't happen overnight. They don't

happen in weeks, months, even years.

Many times they happen in decades. And

so if we're talking about a lifetime

exposure to these things, how do we know

that that's not increasing our risk? So

what I would say is when we talk about

lifetime exposure from something like

LDL,

that's a relatively high concentration

in our bloodstream and

it's always present. You always have a

baseline level of LDL, right? Um you

don't really have baseline levels of

hexane in your bloodstream. I don't I

don't think. At least not to any

appreciable level.

And there is a process, you know,

through your body where your body

converts this to something innocuous and

gets rid of it, right? So really, when

it comes to things that don't what we

call bioaccumulate, the question is if

we have some of this,

is it

in an amount that can be cleared quickly

enough to where there's not negative

outcomes?

And what I would say is, okay,

the example I gave was the amount of oil

you'd need to consume to possibly get

mild side effects.

If anybody wants to, okay, say let's

just say your body couldn't process this

out. Who's drinking 11,000 kg of oil in

their lifetime?

I think probably almost no one.

So I just don't see the possibility for

hexane having a negative outcome for

people, especially when you consider

that

it's very, very low concentration, it

doesn't bioaccumulate, and your body has

a way to process it out, and the amounts

that you get are incredibly [snorts]

small from these seed oils. Okay. Now,

let's consider the fact that

about 100 years ago,

less than 3% of total food availability

was made up of linoleic acid.

Um

today that number is

I mean, it's probably closer to 10%.

>> [music]