Of course, I will read the whole thing, Tuck. Before I do that and because the spirit moved me, I feel inclined to offer this question.
Why do people endeavor to "protect" seed oils so vigorously?
From the standpoint of simplistic libertarian free-market analysis (the only kind I have at my ready disposal) it seems that seed oils are a creation aimed, almost entirely, at finding a use for sludge that would otherwise be thrown away. Cheaper to manufacture as well. Why would such crap also happen to be good for us? Sure, it *could* be, but it's reason for existing is almost exactly orthogonal to that premise. Were I a betting man, or a distrustful man--both of which are, not surprisingly, true--I would figure that "big seed oil" finds these losers and pays them. #JustAWildGuess
I think it’s because people treat diet like a religion. Nick “KnivesAreCool” is a vegan and probably a little autistic with that stupid Reddit handle. He used to use sock puppets on reddit to try to trick people into sounding dumb around the topic of seed oils. He’s pretty much Halal. His form of veganism is rooted in some sort of misanthropy.
The defense of seed oils come from several motivations:
1. Vegans/Vegetarians that assume anything plant based is inherently superior because they're blinded by ideology.
2. Medical/nutritional professionals who have gone all in on the Ancel Keys rooted Diet Heart Hypothesis. An entire social-political-economic-academic culture has emerged based around LDL being treated as an endogenous toxin. The singular myopic view from cardiology has grown so powerful that it overshadows neurology, oncology, immunology, psychiatry (which is it's own little cult). Everything is worth sacrificing if it gets LDL to go down, even if the very thing driving it down is the thing oxidizing it and making it atherogenic to begin with. The sheer volume of (academic and professional) reputations, profits, and frankly - the legal liability in some areas - that is protected/insulated by maintaining this fiction is absolutely massive and cannot be understated.
3. More of a "2a" than a 3. But a great deal of people get into a great deal of subjects/areas so they can be seen as the type of people who "know something". They want to be be admired or carry some kind of clout on a subject. We see this in all facets of life. Here let me give you a non-nutritional example. Go to /r/vinyl on reddit. It's a community of people who .. collect vinyl records. After a couple of months of browsing you'll notice something quite odd. There seems to be a default "blueprint" collection that many people "must have". This collection has no binding ties of genre, era, soundscapes, musical styles, perspectives, emotions convey. It ranges from Pink Floyd to Kendrick Lamar, from Nirvana to the Beatles, from MF Doom to King Crimson's (Court album only). From Miles Davis' Kind of Blue to Fleetwood Mac's Rumors. It spans 60s through the 00s. From folk to hip hop to EDM (Daft Punk). If people collected records because they were exploring their tastes, or chasing popularity and only popularity, or bc they were into a genre or even handful of genres... we would see both ... much wider variety in some people and much more narrow variety in others. Maybe 40 year olds would be collecting 90s records, boomers collecting 60s/70s records. Maybe a young kid would be into nostalgia. Maybe someone sticks strictly tto hip hop? But we don't see that. We see this same, "unique" and "ecclectic" collection over and over and over and over and over (and over). So why is this.? Because many people don't get into this because they simply adore music. Instead, they want to be seen as "SOMEONE WHO KNOWS MUSIC". There's a certain clout of being someone who "knows culture". (pop or otherwise). So how do you get this knowledge? Well, you get it by emulating the people who are already perceived to "know music". So they copy their collections - spending 100s, if not 1000s of dollars so they can post pictures to the internet, to prove to strangers that they, too, understand what makes music "good" in a way you mere plebs cannot.
This drives an absolute ton of motivations for people in academia and various professions and even in people who treat nutritional science as a sort of hobby. They just want to be seen as people who "know things". So they target people, or organizations they deem to be experts, and they-themselves, become experts at regurgitating what they're "supposed to say".
At this point, it's about identity, ego, the little insecure person deep inside of them that drives them to manufacture the perception of superiority and expertise above others.
These people will fight to the death over it because to admit wrong, to pivot and change - especially to do so before those they emulate pivot and change, means to uphend their entire identity and sense of self worth.
There's entire social/professional/academic heirarchies almost completely predicated on this psychiatric commonality in huge swaths of the human population across every field imaginable - serious and trivial alike. It's the psychology of "social value". it has absolutely nothing to do with objective truth. And when debating these people - the argument at the surface - is rarely the actual argument they are having. To them it's not about seed oils. It's about them being better than you, of being someone worthy of respect of....saying outloud.. "god dammit.. i am somebody".
And the sheer volume of people hanging on Thomas Dayspring's nutsack, that fall into this category is exceptionally high.
4. This is a smaller but more powerful group. And it's simply the organizations that stand to profit from this in the billions. ConAgra, Unilever, Monsanto/Bayer, and others. The PR, the corruption of academia, the capture of state and regulatory bodies, and all the downstream messaging from this financial force shapes the conversation.
Nick (The Nutrivore) falls squarely into #1 and #3
This. "There's entire social/professional/academic hierarchies almost completely predicated on this psychiatric commonality in huge swaths of the human population across every field imaginable - serious and trivial alike. It's the psychology of "social value". it has absolutely nothing to do with objective truth. And when debating these people - the argument at the surface - is rarely the actual argument they are having. To them it's not about seed oils. It's about them being better than you, of being someone worthy of respect of....saying out loud.. 'god dammit.. i am somebody'."
While all of it was great, this paragraph hits at the core.
I held my breath through that entire thing. Wow, that was good! I got so much out of your note and appreciate all the effort you put into it. 1,000 thanks.
Great post! Somehow, his post made you really get to the core of some of your own argumentation.
A big epiphany for me was, "the SFA diet does not replace the LA in LDL, while the MUFA diet does, with OA." Is there anything else that does? Is this a reason why omega-3's are helpful? Should I conclude that I should consume a lot more olive oil, or is that taking the chain of syllogisms too far?
Peter@HyperLipid, I believe, didn't think much of oxLDL theory. He used to say that the best cholesterol value is one which is not measured (that is, useless to measure cholesterol).
There was also a joke about spotted purple cholesterol that is the cholesterol that really caused CVD.
I think his idea was hyperinsulinemia was causative in CVD.
A small point--the animal studies on harm due to mustard oil are controversial. This oil has been used in India since ever and it is the major source of w3 fats in North Indian diets. As a supplement to ghee, it is used with no problems.
oxLDL is useful as a marker of the degree of oxidation of n-6 fats, which really cause CVD, and also oxidize cholesterol.
oxLDL also causes hyperinsulinemia, so that's a hint.
Mustard oil is on my to-do list. It's illegal in the US and Europe, I think in error. Another screw-up by the health authorities. If your choice is mustard oil or seed oils, definitely go with the mustard oil.
One of your best. Not because of Nick or his sophistry, but because you walk us through the oxLDL mechanism & idea. I'll say that's the best hypothesis on CVD I've seen to date.
I'll echo the other commenters: this post was really useful because it offered clarification & mechanistic explanation for the omega-6 -> oxLDL -> CVD hypothesis. The bit about oleic acid being protective against PUFA while SFAs are merely neutral was an interesting tidbit I hadn't heard before!
I definitely need to do some brushing up on bio/chem and come back to this post later to understand the arguments in full ...
I used to work in the seed oil industry. People like Hiebert are bought and paid for. The industry is in full-on protection mode very similar to the tobacco industry 50 years ago. It will go the same way.
Me thinks i commented the original...
Why interact with this lunatic?
I just checked with his intralipid claims...hope he is being injected with this stuff. Me never.
JR
It's the old post. Still moving stuff over.
i presume this is your swan song with Nick....I sure hope so. He will be in love for he/himself until death do it parteth.
Of course, I will read the whole thing, Tuck. Before I do that and because the spirit moved me, I feel inclined to offer this question.
Why do people endeavor to "protect" seed oils so vigorously?
From the standpoint of simplistic libertarian free-market analysis (the only kind I have at my ready disposal) it seems that seed oils are a creation aimed, almost entirely, at finding a use for sludge that would otherwise be thrown away. Cheaper to manufacture as well. Why would such crap also happen to be good for us? Sure, it *could* be, but it's reason for existing is almost exactly orthogonal to that premise. Were I a betting man, or a distrustful man--both of which are, not surprisingly, true--I would figure that "big seed oil" finds these losers and pays them. #JustAWildGuess
I think it’s because people treat diet like a religion. Nick “KnivesAreCool” is a vegan and probably a little autistic with that stupid Reddit handle. He used to use sock puppets on reddit to try to trick people into sounding dumb around the topic of seed oils. He’s pretty much Halal. His form of veganism is rooted in some sort of misanthropy.
Noted. I might assert that vegans treat diet like a religion, but I might be repeating myself. :-)
The defense of seed oils come from several motivations:
1. Vegans/Vegetarians that assume anything plant based is inherently superior because they're blinded by ideology.
2. Medical/nutritional professionals who have gone all in on the Ancel Keys rooted Diet Heart Hypothesis. An entire social-political-economic-academic culture has emerged based around LDL being treated as an endogenous toxin. The singular myopic view from cardiology has grown so powerful that it overshadows neurology, oncology, immunology, psychiatry (which is it's own little cult). Everything is worth sacrificing if it gets LDL to go down, even if the very thing driving it down is the thing oxidizing it and making it atherogenic to begin with. The sheer volume of (academic and professional) reputations, profits, and frankly - the legal liability in some areas - that is protected/insulated by maintaining this fiction is absolutely massive and cannot be understated.
3. More of a "2a" than a 3. But a great deal of people get into a great deal of subjects/areas so they can be seen as the type of people who "know something". They want to be be admired or carry some kind of clout on a subject. We see this in all facets of life. Here let me give you a non-nutritional example. Go to /r/vinyl on reddit. It's a community of people who .. collect vinyl records. After a couple of months of browsing you'll notice something quite odd. There seems to be a default "blueprint" collection that many people "must have". This collection has no binding ties of genre, era, soundscapes, musical styles, perspectives, emotions convey. It ranges from Pink Floyd to Kendrick Lamar, from Nirvana to the Beatles, from MF Doom to King Crimson's (Court album only). From Miles Davis' Kind of Blue to Fleetwood Mac's Rumors. It spans 60s through the 00s. From folk to hip hop to EDM (Daft Punk). If people collected records because they were exploring their tastes, or chasing popularity and only popularity, or bc they were into a genre or even handful of genres... we would see both ... much wider variety in some people and much more narrow variety in others. Maybe 40 year olds would be collecting 90s records, boomers collecting 60s/70s records. Maybe a young kid would be into nostalgia. Maybe someone sticks strictly tto hip hop? But we don't see that. We see this same, "unique" and "ecclectic" collection over and over and over and over and over (and over). So why is this.? Because many people don't get into this because they simply adore music. Instead, they want to be seen as "SOMEONE WHO KNOWS MUSIC". There's a certain clout of being someone who "knows culture". (pop or otherwise). So how do you get this knowledge? Well, you get it by emulating the people who are already perceived to "know music". So they copy their collections - spending 100s, if not 1000s of dollars so they can post pictures to the internet, to prove to strangers that they, too, understand what makes music "good" in a way you mere plebs cannot.
This drives an absolute ton of motivations for people in academia and various professions and even in people who treat nutritional science as a sort of hobby. They just want to be seen as people who "know things". So they target people, or organizations they deem to be experts, and they-themselves, become experts at regurgitating what they're "supposed to say".
At this point, it's about identity, ego, the little insecure person deep inside of them that drives them to manufacture the perception of superiority and expertise above others.
These people will fight to the death over it because to admit wrong, to pivot and change - especially to do so before those they emulate pivot and change, means to uphend their entire identity and sense of self worth.
There's entire social/professional/academic heirarchies almost completely predicated on this psychiatric commonality in huge swaths of the human population across every field imaginable - serious and trivial alike. It's the psychology of "social value". it has absolutely nothing to do with objective truth. And when debating these people - the argument at the surface - is rarely the actual argument they are having. To them it's not about seed oils. It's about them being better than you, of being someone worthy of respect of....saying outloud.. "god dammit.. i am somebody".
And the sheer volume of people hanging on Thomas Dayspring's nutsack, that fall into this category is exceptionally high.
4. This is a smaller but more powerful group. And it's simply the organizations that stand to profit from this in the billions. ConAgra, Unilever, Monsanto/Bayer, and others. The PR, the corruption of academia, the capture of state and regulatory bodies, and all the downstream messaging from this financial force shapes the conversation.
Nick (The Nutrivore) falls squarely into #1 and #3
This. "There's entire social/professional/academic hierarchies almost completely predicated on this psychiatric commonality in huge swaths of the human population across every field imaginable - serious and trivial alike. It's the psychology of "social value". it has absolutely nothing to do with objective truth. And when debating these people - the argument at the surface - is rarely the actual argument they are having. To them it's not about seed oils. It's about them being better than you, of being someone worthy of respect of....saying out loud.. 'god dammit.. i am somebody'."
While all of it was great, this paragraph hits at the core.
I held my breath through that entire thing. Wow, that was good! I got so much out of your note and appreciate all the effort you put into it. 1,000 thanks.
Glad you did!
Great post! Somehow, his post made you really get to the core of some of your own argumentation.
A big epiphany for me was, "the SFA diet does not replace the LA in LDL, while the MUFA diet does, with OA." Is there anything else that does? Is this a reason why omega-3's are helpful? Should I conclude that I should consume a lot more olive oil, or is that taking the chain of syllogisms too far?
Dairy fat is 24% oleic acid, and beef tallow is around 47%. I don't think you'd be lacking in oleic acid by eating a high-beef diet.
Thanks for that info! (I love your blog too!)
It's a strong argument against just eating SFA, like coconut oil or cocoa. Most animal fats have a fair bit of OA already.
Thanks for the reply!
Cocoa appears to be 34% OA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_butter
I stand corrected. Let me go get some chocolate!
Peter@HyperLipid, I believe, didn't think much of oxLDL theory. He used to say that the best cholesterol value is one which is not measured (that is, useless to measure cholesterol).
There was also a joke about spotted purple cholesterol that is the cholesterol that really caused CVD.
I think his idea was hyperinsulinemia was causative in CVD.
A small point--the animal studies on harm due to mustard oil are controversial. This oil has been used in India since ever and it is the major source of w3 fats in North Indian diets. As a supplement to ghee, it is used with no problems.
oxLDL is useful as a marker of the degree of oxidation of n-6 fats, which really cause CVD, and also oxidize cholesterol.
oxLDL also causes hyperinsulinemia, so that's a hint.
Mustard oil is on my to-do list. It's illegal in the US and Europe, I think in error. Another screw-up by the health authorities. If your choice is mustard oil or seed oils, definitely go with the mustard oil.
One of your best. Not because of Nick or his sophistry, but because you walk us through the oxLDL mechanism & idea. I'll say that's the best hypothesis on CVD I've seen to date.
Wow, I should flesh it out then! This is missing a lot.
I will gladly read however many million more words you are willing to write about this!
You should!
Seeing ‘that’ name made me go cold.
I'll echo the other commenters: this post was really useful because it offered clarification & mechanistic explanation for the omega-6 -> oxLDL -> CVD hypothesis. The bit about oleic acid being protective against PUFA while SFAs are merely neutral was an interesting tidbit I hadn't heard before!
I definitely need to do some brushing up on bio/chem and come back to this post later to understand the arguments in full ...
I used to work in the seed oil industry. People like Hiebert are bought and paid for. The industry is in full-on protection mode very similar to the tobacco industry 50 years ago. It will go the same way.