W E LLNESS The Skinny on Fats and Oils By By Alyssa Swanson Hamilton and Cheri Swanson, Certified Nutrition Counselor In the field of nutrition counseling, we get a lot of client questions about oils: which are healthy, which aren’t, and how do we know what to choose? Refined vegetable and seed oils — mainstays in the modern American diet — were not accessible to us until the 20th century, when the technology to extract them became available. The extraction process involves either a chemical solvent or an oil mill. The oils are then often purified, refined, and sometimes chemically altered. These oils are used in cooking and baking, in restaurants, and are found in processed foods including salad dressings, margarine, mayonnaise, and cookies. The most common ones are canola, corn, cottonseed, soybean, sunflower, safflower, grapeseed, and rice bran oil. The potential problem? They are high in omega-6 fatty acids and can oxidize and become rancid when exposed to high temperatures. Both omega-6 and omega-3 are essential fatty acids; your body cannot produce them and must obtain them from your diet. Throughout evolution, humans got omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in
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a certain ratio, estimated to have been about oneto-one. In the past 100 years, however, this ratio in our Western diet has been significantly altered and may be as high as twenty-to-one in favor of omega-6. Scientists have hypothesized that too much omega-6 (found in many vegetable and seed oils) relative to omega-3 may contribute to chronic inflammation and other health concerns. The good news? There are many delicious alternatives available (Hint: Your grandparents and great grandparents used many of them!). Healthy replacements include options like ghee, grass-fed butter, avocado oil, and coconut oil.
