07/05/2026
Dr Diet and the right oils
The Most Successful Food Scam in American History Started With Factory Waste
In 1911, Procter & Gamble launched Crisco.
They took cottonseed oil — once treated as industrial waste — hydrogenated it into a shelf-stable white fat, and sold it to American families as “modern,” “clean,” and “healthier” than butter or lard.
It was brilliant marketing. It was also the beginning of a dietary experiment America never voted for. Before Crisco, humans cooked mostly with animal fats, butter, olive oil, coconut, and other traditional fats.
Then came the industrial oil era. Cottonseed oil. Soybean oil. Corn oil. Canola oil. Sunflower oil. Grapeseed oil.
Cheap to produce. Easy to refine. Perfect for packaged food. Perfect for restaurants. Perfect for corporate margins.
And now?
They’re in nearly everything.
Chips. Crackers. Dressings. Protein bars. Frozen meals. Fast food. “Healthy” snacks. Plant-based products. Restaurant food.
The real issue is not that one drop of seed oil is poison. The issue is scale. We took fragile, highly processed oils, pushed them through heat, pressure, chemical refining, deodorizing, packaging, frying, reheating, and months of shelf life…
Then made them one of the dominant fat sources in the modern diet.
That has consequences.
1. Your omega balance changed dramatically
Seed oils are high in linoleic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid.
Omega-6 fats are essential. You need some.
But modern diets often deliver far more omega-6 than omega-3, especially when processed food replaces fish, eggs, grass-fed meat, and whole foods.
That matters because omega-6 and omega-3 fats compete in inflammatory and anti-inflammatory signaling pathways.
Your body is not just counting calories.
It is reading chemical instructions.
2. Heat changes everything
Polyunsaturated fats are chemically delicate.
When exposed to high heat, oxygen, and repeated frying, they can oxidize and form reactive compounds like aldehydes and lipid peroxides.
These compounds are linked to oxidative stress — the same cellular stress pathway involved in aging, metabolic dysfunction, and chronic disease.
That “crispy” restaurant food cooked in reused fryer oil?
Not the same thing as cold-pressed oil sitting untouched in a bottle.
Context matters. Heat matters. Processing matters.
3. Your mitochondria notice
Your mitochondria are the tiny engines inside your cells. They convert food into energy.
A diet overloaded with ultra-processed foods, oxidized fats, excess sugar, and low micronutrients can impair metabolic flexibility — your body’s ability to switch between burning carbs and burning fat.
That’s one reason people can be overfed and under-energized at the same time.
- Full stomach.
- Crashing energy.
- Constant cravings.
- Broken signals.
4. Your liver takes the hit
The liver is your metabolic command center. It processes fats, sugars, alcohol, toxins, and hormones. When the diet is dominated by ultra-processed food, refined carbs, industrial oils, and excess calories, the liver becomes a storage unit instead of a filter.
Fatty liver is now common even in people who don’t drink heavily. That should terrify us.
5. The biggest problem is not your salad dressing
It’s the food system.
Most people are not getting seed oils from a teaspoon of oil in a home-cooked meal. They’re getting them from packaged food and restaurants.
Translation:
The seed oil debate is really a processed food debate.
➡️Cheap oils made cheap food possible.
➡️Cheap food made overeating effortless.
➡️Overeating made sickness profitable......Follow the incentives.
So what do you do?
Start simple.
Read labels.
Avoid products with:
❌Soybean oil
❌Canola oil
❌Corn oil
❌Cottonseed oil
❌Sunflower oil
❌Grapeseed oil
❌Generic “vegetable oil”
❌Hydrogentated, partially hydrogenated, modified anything
âś…Use extra virgin olive oil on salads, vegetables, and finished dishes.
âś…Cook with stable traditional fats like butter, ghee, tallow, coconut oil, or avocado oil.
âś…Eat whole foods.
âś…Cook at home more often.
âś…Stop outsourcing your metabolism to companies that profit when food sits on a shelf for 18 months.
Butter was never the villain.
Real food was never the problem.
The problem is industrial food pretending to be health food.
Your body is built from what you eat. Choose ingredients your great-grandparents would recognize.
Read the label.
Question the marketing.
Take back control of your kitchen.
