This was a great post, really appreciate the summary and analysis! And yeah, no one should have high certainty about nutritional questions this complicated.
For myself, I mostly eliminated these oils from my diet about 4 years ago, along with reducing industrially-processed food in general. Not 100%, I’m not a purist, but other than some occasional sunflower oil none of these are in foods I keep at home, and I only eat anywhere else 0-2 times per week. I did lose a little weight in the beginning, maybe 10 lbs, but then stabilized. But what I have mostly noticed is that when I eat lots of fried food, depending on the oil used (which to some degree you can taste), I’m either fine, or feel exhausted/congested/thirsty for basically a full day. I think you may have a point about trans fata from reusing oil, since anecdotally this seems even worse for leftovers.
Of course, another thing I did at the same time is switch to grass-fed butter and pasture-raised eggs. Organic meats and milk, not always pasture raised. Conventional cheeses. I’ve read things claiming the fatty acid composition is significantly different for these foods depending on what the animals eat, in terms of omega 3⁄6 ratios, saturated/unsaturated fat ratios, and fatty acid chain lengths. I’ve never looked too deeply into checking those claims, because for me the fact that they taste better is reason enough. As far as I can tell, it wasn’t until WWII or later that we really started feeding cows corn and raising chickens in dense indoor cages with feed? Yet another variable/potential confounder for studies.
This was a great post, really appreciate the summary and analysis! And yeah, no one should have high certainty about nutritional questions this complicated.
For myself, I mostly eliminated these oils from my diet about 4 years ago, along with reducing industrially-processed food in general. Not 100%, I’m not a purist, but other than some occasional sunflower oil none of these are in foods I keep at home, and I only eat anywhere else 0-2 times per week. I did lose a little weight in the beginning, maybe 10 lbs, but then stabilized. But what I have mostly noticed is that when I eat lots of fried food, depending on the oil used (which to some degree you can taste), I’m either fine, or feel exhausted/congested/thirsty for basically a full day. I think you may have a point about trans fata from reusing oil, since anecdotally this seems even worse for leftovers.
Of course, another thing I did at the same time is switch to grass-fed butter and pasture-raised eggs. Organic meats and milk, not always pasture raised. Conventional cheeses. I’ve read things claiming the fatty acid composition is significantly different for these foods depending on what the animals eat, in terms of omega 3⁄6 ratios, saturated/unsaturated fat ratios, and fatty acid chain lengths. I’ve never looked too deeply into checking those claims, because for me the fact that they taste better is reason enough. As far as I can tell, it wasn’t until WWII or later that we really started feeding cows corn and raising chickens in dense indoor cages with feed? Yet another variable/potential confounder for studies.