The Good, the Bad and the Trans: Why we Need to Talk about Vegetable Oil

Is there really a big difference between Saturated Fats, Polyunsaturated fats and Trans fats?

What makes a fat turn bad, and how can we distinguish between the fats we should enjoy and the ones that we should avoid at all costs? What are the dangers of vegetable oil?

The ketogenic diet prescribes a high fat-intake, often up to 90% of calories can come from fat. But this doesn’t give us free reign to eat any kind of fats. We need to focus on consuming saturated and unsaturated fats–these are stable, unprocessed fats that do not oxidise in our bodies. Whereas polyunsaturated and Trans fats, these have been processed or hydrogenated, and are extremely dangerous to our health.

In essence, all fats start out with good intentions. Unfortunately, it is the mass production and harsh processing of industrial era fats that degrades them. They cause oxidation in the body, the release of free radicals, which ultimately, can lead to enzyme destruction and even DNA distortion. This is just one of the dangers of vegetable oil.

‘Free radicals are high energy-electrons that are involved in every known disease. They cause disease by restructuring nearly every molecule they come into contact with, converting biologically functioning molecules into dysfunctional or even toxic molecules.’ —Deep Nutrition P. 140.

Learn even more about the science here.

For example, rapeseeds, sunflowers, sesame seeds, vegetable seeds in their unprocessed and raw form contain healthy and un-degraded fats. It is the high pressure, heat, and chemicals used in mass production that distorts the fatty chains. They cause havoc in our bodies after consumption.

Catherine Shanahan explains the dangers of polyunsaturated, trans and mega trans fats:

‘Processing distorts the fatty acids in vegetable oil so they can no longer assume the typical five or six sided geometry. Like Chinese finger traps, our enzymes pick up these distorted fatty acids and then can’t let them go., which hampers cellular function so profoundly it can kill your cells. And if you eat enough trans fats, cellular dysfunction will impair so many cells in so many tissues that the cumulative effects will disrupt basic functions (like blood circulation or your body’s ability to fight infection) and eventually kill you.’ – Deep Nutrition p.131

Furthermore, free radicals damage DNA and can therefore impair the health of your children and grandchildren.

Heat, high pressure and chemicals alter the bonds in fats which make them more reactive and less stable.

The clue is that they are not seeds and therefore not heat sensitive for the germination process—if you keep that in mind, you can’t make a mistake when choosing cooking fats.

Probably! Because at least, if you are exercising, you can burn glucose for fuel before it causes inflammation in the body. But the free radicals released by degraded fats cannot be completely undone. Even large quantities antioxidant-rich foods can only counteract some of the oxidation. Foods rich in antioxidants include: blueberries, blackberries, elderberries, green tea, yerba mate tea, goji berries, dark chocolate and coriander.

This was just a simple introduction. To delve deeper, we recommend reading: Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food 2016 by Catherine Shanahan M.D

Find out more about healthy fats for the ketogenic diet here.

and don’t forget to  download your free 7 day ketogenic meal plan–it’s full of delicious, easy and healthy high-fat recipes!

And don’t forget to check out our shop with the latest ketogenic supplements!