Vegetable oils. Avoid them, or are we afraid of them?
Is sunflower oil the unhealthiest food? Was it originally intended as a lubricant for machinery?
Sunflower oil is a terrible lubricant, sticky when it dries. And just because a certain oil is a good lubricant doesn't mean it's definitely unhealthy.
Coconut oil, for example, is a decent lubricant and quite suitable for consumption.
So, here's the gist of it. Nowadays, especially in the West, there's a growing hysteria about vegetable oils, claiming they're extremely unhealthy, that they're making everyone fat, that we should switch to animal fats, and so on.
However, research shows that animal fats, or more specifically, saturated fats, are generally more harmful to health than plant fats.
The risk of cardiovascular disease is higher with animal fats, oxidative stress is greater, and animal fats raise cholesterol more.
And fatty liver disease is more pronounced with saturated fats than with plant fats. (PMID: 25161045, PMID: 8199179, PMID: 15070924, PMID: 19032965, PMID: 31369090).
Why the sudden focus on vegetable fats? Perhaps because they are the main source of excess calories in the modern world. And excess calories = obesity = systemic inflammation, and all the problems described in the video. Overall, obesity is linked to over 200 diseases.
It's easy to get excess calories from vegetable oil. Say you have a large bowl of vegetable salad with 150 kcal. Just two tablespoons of vegetable oil will add another 200. Actually, more. A tablespoon holds 17 grams of oil, which is 17 x 2 = 287 kcal.
Or they added a little oil to the pan, another 200-300 kcal. And in restaurants and cafes, they pour everything generously.
That's all the math. By the way, if you're having trouble gaining weight, here's the recipe above.