I’ve put together a new article: Health Benefits of Sunflower Oil
You can view it here, or through our Guides & Articles link at the top.
Any points of discussion, please use this thread 
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I will definitely read this later. I know there are some plant-based people who eschew added oils to their foods. Some, very adamant about “no oil”! They don’t have a problem consuming whole seeds (or grounded seeds) but consider oil a processed food. I am on the fence about this but I they do have some interesting arguments against it.
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Hopefully I addressed those arguments in the article
Ok read the article. I’ve even started looking at a few references. Thanks for doing this @JamesCollier . It’s a more complicated science than some people lead us to believe.
I think one of your main points in the article is the differentiation between consuming an oil either not heated or just heated properly once verses consuming a product (like a breaded meat or potato product) which has been cooked in a vat of oil which is heated over and over and exposed to light/environment inbetween bouts of heating. I know from my highschool job at an unnamed fast food place that we allowed the french fry oil to be used for 3 to 4 days before changing it. That oil could have been heated maybe 300 to 400 times by the end of its life, and sat exposed to air and light for days.
I am wondering if the studies showing negative human health from consuming too much fat/oil are being muddied, so to speak. In a nation where people consume a lot of deep fried foods, a lot of their oil consumption will include these. I am wondering if that is the true source of the problem. I am not sure the olive oil used in our salad dressings or hummus or the small amount of sunflower oil I spray in the pan to cook my food is something to be all that concerned with. But God help me if I post a recipe in the Whole Food Plant Based No Oils facebook group that includes a milliliter of oil. My post will be flagged. And I dare not speak of Huel in that forum since Huel is technically not a whole food. These people have me using vegetable broth to cook in my pan, which evaporates away quickly and I’ve burned a few dishes. I may just go back to secretly coating my pan with a quick spray of Pam, shorten my life by 0.37 years, and call it a day.
While I have your attention, what is your opinion on the role of dietary fat causing insulin resistance? One of the prevailing theories is that over-consumption of fat leads to a build of up fatty liver and intramyocellular lipids in muscle tissue, which can lead those tissues to become less sensitive to insulin over time. And thus even though Type 2 diabetes is a disease characterized by elevated blood glucose, the original insult was years of high fat consumption. And it can muddy the conversation about whether carbohydrates cause Type 2 diabetes or not. The argument being that people who ate a starch based diet low in fat and low in simple sugars do not develop insulin resistance, so it’s not carbohydrates as a whole that are the cause of Type 2 DM.
I am wondering if the studies showing negative human health from consuming too much fat/oil are being muddied, so to speak. In a nation where people consume a lot of deep fried foods, a lot of their oil consumption will include these.
For sure, I reckon this has had a significant impact.
While I have your attention, what is your opinion on the role of dietary fat causing insulin resistance? One of the prevailing theories is that over-consumption of fat leads to a build of up fatty liver and intramyocellular lipids in muscle tissue, which can lead those tissues to become less sensitive to insulin over time. And thus even though Type 2 diabetes is a disease characterized by elevated blood glucose, the original insult was years of high fat consumption. And it can muddy the conversation about whether carbohydrates cause Type 2 diabetes or not. The argument being that people who ate a starch based diet low in fat and low in simple sugars do not develop insulin resistance, so it’s not carbohydrates as a whole that are the cause of Type 2 DM.
This is a huge topic and, for sure, different fatty acids have different effects on insulin resistance. But it’s not just total fat and also what is ‘over-consumption’? Is it absolute amounts of the percentage of total energy? Is it fat load in a meal? or intake over a day or a week? Also, as discussed in the sunflower oil article, what has happened to the fats before ingestion? For sure dietary fat has a role, but it’s not a simple discussion.
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