The Great Refined Fats and Carbohydrates Debate

I get this same question constantly and my views have changed quite significantly on this subject. Here is a review of my recent findings and understanding...

The main benefit of eliminating industrialized vegetable/seed oils is the elimination of high-calorie malnutrition, i.e. excessive empty calories. The same applies to refined sucrose, but it goes a bit deeper than this. It is still far more simple than I previously believed, and definitely simpler than so many food gurus portray.

Second is the sparing of DHA/EPA in organs and tissue, O3 fatty acids being inherently anti-inflammatory. Excessively high O6 fatty acid intake displaces O3 fatty acids from organs, tissue, and the cellular membranes, while also jamming up the fatty acid conversion enzyme. Seafood, shellfish, animal brains, pasture-raised eggs, and grass-fed lamb intake displaces O6 fatty acids from tissue, that whole 400+ O6 storage scare tactic is bullshit. This is partly the reason why people notice an anti-inflammatory benefit from the elimination of these industrialized vegetable/seed oils. The other half is advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) and aldehydes (acrolein, for example) produced via refrying these unstable oils repeatedly for sometimes weeks and even months at fast food joints. These byproducts are known to be inflammatory and are even implicated in degenerative diseases themselves. As you can see from the studies above, these are the primary contributing factors to the diseases claimed to be caused by industrialized vegetable/seed oils, namely otherwise claimed to be caused by linoleic acid.

However, despite both O6 and O3 fatty acids being essential to health, ratio and context are ultimately what matters most. It becomes an issue with 15-40:1 O6 to O3 ratio profile because of the massive O3 displacement. Modern Western gluttony is the main culprit here. Optimally, your ratio should be around 1-3:1 O6/O3, however, if your budget is tight, you can still get away with 6:1 ratio maximum and still be healthy in my experience with reading fatty acid profiles. If you had ZERO O6 fatty acid intake, which is impossible as all animals store both O6 and O3, (meaning regular intake of ruminants animals aside from grass-fed lamb and eggs will still provide sometimes comparable O6/O3 ratio intake) you would die from bleeding out as the metabolic byproducts from O6 metabolism are necessary for blood clotting just as an example. Eggs being a solid example if the chickens who lay them are fed a suboptimal diet. Another example, O6 PUFA primarily makes up part of the mitochondrial membrane called cardiolipin. My partner CK wrote more about this subject here.

The reason people experience benefit is between these two effects and beginning to nourish themselves with nutrient-dense whole food sources with inherently lower caloric intake. Not because of any magical components like linoleic acid. Food gurus overcomplicate and hyper-fixate on an extremely simple explanation that is actually displayed in modern data and research, and instead inaccurately attempt to translate animal studies to humans despite such vast contrary data present.  If it was the linoleic acid, Nigella sativa/black cumin seed oil would not contribute to the disease reversal of all disease states and conditions proposed by food gurus. This was the primary concept that made me reconsider my entire bias regarding these oils.

The Japanese consume both canola and soybean oil, yet their seafood consumption far out rivals America by a significant rate, hence their greater longevity rates despite consuming seed oils as a primary part of their total fat intake.  The issue is a lack of O3, rather than O6 inherently. Americans just consume zero seafood/shellfish (O3) and excessive industrialized vegetable/seed oils (fast/processed foods), let alone nutrient-dense whole food sources to replete the micronutrient depleted inherently in the metabolism of empty calories.

When people eliminate seed oils, they eliminate ALL seed oils including the PRIMARY problem source, which is refried seed oils from fast food. Cold-pressed is not the same due to a lack of AGEs and aldehyde (acrolein) formation, along with retaining antioxidant micronutrients and constituents.

Why does supplementation of single micronutrients produce such profound benefits in all aspects of health, as we've seen with literally tens of thousands of people with magnesium alone? (Reference for Magnesium's role in metabolic health) Because that is the major factor we’re looking at here, zoom in past macronutrient hyper fixation and into micronutrient. People experience a benefit from eliminating an empty source of calories because they replace it with micronutrient-dense foods, not because of any magical explanation like linoleic acid.  These empty calories deplete micronutrients without replacing them. This is something I've detailed since I began sharing and teaching about health and nutrition, and a realization that I've come back to since shedding my ketogenic/carnivore-based biases.

These two following chart images detail exactly what I mean quite effectively, you may recall them from when I've shared them periodically over the years. All macronutrient metabolism requires micronutrients to be metabolized properly whatsoever without fat storage, and now we know the light is an important factor here as well. Now... when you're eating nutritionally void calorie sources without the micronutrients to replace them, THAT is where we begin to run into issues and disease states as that malnourished state begins to exacerbate on a more and more severe level.

See attached images.

Little difference between low fat and low carb diets, and similar results as long as weight loss is stable. Ultimately do what is most sustainable for you, but always keep micronutrient profile and light in mind so nothing becomes depleted. Health restoration is inevitable doing so. Weight loss, light/circadian rhythm, exercise, and micronutrient repletion is the key driving factor in resolving type 2 diabetes and the health conditions that come with it. The primary commonality between all “diets”, “oh keto works for me”, “vegan/vegetarian worked for me”, “reduced caloric intake worked for me”, they all replaced high-calorie nutrient-void foods with lower-calorie nutrient-dense foods, removing processed/fast foods and liquid calories more often than not.

These foods are intentionally designed to be hyper-palatable and addictive for multiple reasons, not just fat and carb/sugar combination but also due to free glutamates. In general, when people eat them, it’s typically ALL they eat because whole food sources no longer taste the same.

More myths busted and miscellaneous information:

• Industrialized vegetable/seed oils or O6 PUFA actually INCREASEs metabolic rate in humans, the concept shared in the Twitter health and nutrition community sourced from Ray Peat is an attempt to translate animal studies into humans. Not a fan of Kevin Bass personally, but he's compiled more than a dozen references that disprove this theory.
• Another review compilation from Bass on many of the theories in this health/nutrition circle.
• My research partner, CK, has compiled dozens of studies supporting these theories, he was the one that initially prompted me to reevaluate my own bias. I thought it was bullshit initially, I will be honest, but the fact black seed oil was an exception to everything I thought I knew really got me thinking...
• Extremely detailed review on PUFA oxidation in humans and cooking, and the inflammatory theory.
• Continued review of the subject matter above.
• Detailing the difference between cold-pressed and industrialized/refried restaraunt PUFA oils.
• An extensive review on cholesterol, PUFA, heart disease, and the various fats with their influences on lipid markers.

Just to sum it all up, if you are healthy without disease, eating out with friends and family once in a while is not going to kill you. Having a treat once in a while is not going to kill you. Social isolation and the stress of thinking you're going to die with a single meal will have a more negative impact on your health long-term than eating an industrialized vegetable/seed oil or refined sucrose-laden meal with your loved ones. With that said, if you are not healthy and are working on resolving or managing disease, discipline is a wise decision until your fatty acid ratio and metabolic health is restored to a healthy baseline. I do not regret my time being absolutely strict on my diet as I do believe it was essential to curing my own conditions and restoring what my health is today. If you do not have severe mitochondrial disease, exercising the 80/20 guideline rule is an awesome means to maintain that social life while maintaining your health simultaneously. This means eating healthy nutrient-dense whole foods and getting lots of sunlight during the daytime with total darkness at night 80% of the time, and you will have that leniency to enjoy modern life the other 20% of the time. This is what I've been doing myself as of late since moving in with my wife and daughter. My wife had pointed out that I was beginning to experience borderline orthorexic tendencies and that is the very last perspective I would like to instill with you all.

If you do need to be 100% disciplined in your diet, just remind yourself it will not be forever and that what you are doing is for yourself, an optimized future, and future generations if you choose to have children at any point. It is worth it if you are not in a healthy state like I was. Ignore the orthorexic fear propaganda on Twitter, we all have the tools here on this page to resolve anything dietary and metabolic-related, that is why I no longer stress about my diet myself.

When you do eat out or have the occasional treat, just make sure you catch the sunrise, midday sun, and sunset, have a serving of seafood or shellfish, and a dose of black seed oil if you consume industrialized vegetable/seed oils (displaces O6 PUFA from tissue and prevents oxidation/inflammation), and exercise to glycogen depletion and have some black seed oil, magnesium, and inositol if you consume refined sucrose (stabilizes blood sugar and prevents inflammation). Don't forget to enjoy yourself, don't guilt yourself into an eating disorder if you don't have to maintain absolute strictness.

Mathew AA, Panonnummal R. 'Magnesium'-the master cation-as a drug-possibilities and evidences. Biometals. 2021;34(5):955-986. doi:10.1007/s10534-021-00328-7