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Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Everything You Need To Know About Seed Oils | Cate Shanahan, MD
00:59:10
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- [00:00]
A
The generation born today has less of a chance at optimal health than any generation in human history.
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B
If we have all of this evidence about vegetable oils, why aren't they being banned from our food supply just like they did with trans fats?
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A
The problem is the American Heart association is controlling what doctors learn. When doctors and all dietitians and health practitioners believe that vegetable oils are heart healthy, that is what they're patients here. And the American Heart association essentially is a absolutely corrupt organization that has no care or concern for human health.
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B
More than 80% of foods contain at least one type of vegetable oil, whether you go to Whole foods or the dollar store. And 30% of the calories in our diet are coming from seed oils. These affect the health of each and every major organ in tissue, including arteries, our brain, liver and skin. Now some food scientists and nutritionists online say all this seed oil talk is a big nothing burger, that it's fear mongering nonsense. Is there any actual evidence to show that it is inflammatory and dangerous to consume? When Dr. Kate Shanahan learned that vegetable oils were chock full of highly unstable polyunsaturated fatty acids and forming a sticky gummy residue in salad bowls and frying pans, she wanted to know what that meant for the people eating them. She has spent the last 20 plus years researching exactly that and counts the founder of Primal Kitchen Condiments and Tru Food Kitchen as friends. This episode is available to watch on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel. Subscribe for all sorts of extra content and follow the show on Instagram for all sorts of tips on how to heal a sick culture physically, mentally and spiritually at Culture Apothecary. This show is only possible with donations and financial contributions from listeners like you who believe in our mission. You can make a tax deductible donation with the link in the description or leave a five star review anytime to support the show for free. Dr. Kate Shanahan is a Cornell trained physician scientist whose works have inspired entire movements involving bone broth, live culture ferments and seed oil free business empires. She has revamped the LA Lakers nutrition program which has been emulated by elite championship teams around the world. She is the bestselling author of Deep Nutrition but is here today to discuss her newest book, Dark Calories How Vegetable Oils Destroy Our Health and how we can get it back. Please welcome her to today's episode of Culture Apothecary. Dr. Shanahan, lots of people on social say that this discourse about seed oils is fear mongering. It's not based in science. What's your response?
- [03:10]
A
That is exactly what the processed food industry and the healthcare industries want us to believe. That empowers them. And so the people who are making those kinds of statements don't know it, but they are actually being, you know, unfortunately, useful idiots for the folks who profit off of our sickness and suffering.
- [03:30]
B
Is there evidence to show that vegetable oils are really harmful to the body?
- [03:35]
A
There is so much evidence that this big fat book is only one of three equally big fat books that I've been filling with evidence over the past 20 years, since I started studying and writing in this space. There is so much. I mean, we're talking about evidence from toxicology, we're talking about evidence from within the industry itself, and evidence in basic sciences. There's. There's so much evidence I could keep writing books probably for another 20 years and maybe even then it's not run out because it's all around us. But the reason that doctors aren't seeing it is because we have another ideology that is totally clouding our vision about what's going on with our own patients.
- [04:24]
B
What is it about vegetable oils or seed oils that alarmed you so much as a doctor that you decided to spend the last 20 years really focusing on educating, educating not only medical professionals, but the American people on the dangers of these oils.
- [04:36]
A
Unlike anything else in the food supply, they are full of toxins when they leave the factory. And the toxins in the bottles of the seed oils, like soy oil, canola oil, even if they say organic, there are toxins in there. And those toxins are just the start of the problem because those toxins act like accelerants, basically. And they turn around and turn other chemicals in the bottle there called polyunsaturated fatty acids. They damage those and turn them into toxins. And then when we cook with them, these toxins attack the nutrients in our food. And then when we eat them, the toxins start attacking our gut, our intestinal tract, they head to our liver, they start attacking our liver, and it just goes on. So this. I'm just scraping the surface, but there's nothing in the food supply that is released in this sort of a state where it actually contains known toxins in high concentrations. When we're talking about toxins and toxicology, we have to keep in mind this phrase, the dose makes the poison. And that phrase has two meanings. And one of the meanings is you gotta know how much toxin we're talking about. For example, bottles of Expeller pressed canola oil contain anywhere from 0.6% to 5.2% unnatural fatty acid molecules that are potentially toxic. So we're talking about, on a percentage basis, of molecules that were not there in the seed, they're there because of what happens to get them out of the seed. So things like soybeans and sunflower seeds are perfectly safe to consume, but the processing that turns the seed into an oil is so harsh and so damaging that it is impossible to make one of these oils at the scale that they are made without generating this substantial amount of toxin. We're talking about percentages, which is parts per hundred. And we've all heard about toxins, you know, like Roundup in the food supply. Those are present in parts per billion. So we're talking about 10 million times more toxicity. So that's why I say vegetable oils are the most important toxin to avoid in the human diet. And. And it's insane to me that these are the very oils that the American Heart association promotes as heart healthy says right on the bottle.
- [07:24]
B
Okay, as so many questions about what you just said, so let's start with the American Heart Association. If there is evidence that these oils are inflammatory to the body, that they are heart damaging, not heart healthy, why would the American Heart association promote them as healthier than, let's say, beef tallow or butter?
- [07:44]
A
Is because of money, of course. Like so many things. Right. But the story of this connection wherein the money changed hands when it first changed hands happened so long ago, it was in 1948 that it's all but forgotten. And doctors learn absolutely nothing about this. But. And they should, because the American Heart association basically educates all health care practitioners, doctors, dietitians, you name it, about nutrition. The American Heart association runs the nutrition conversation. So that's why it's so important to understand their history and that they started promoting these oils as heart healthy very soon, in a matter of just a few years after they first accepted money from a company called Procter and Gamble, which sold soy oil and cottonseed oil.
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B
And Procter and Gamble, are they the ones who came out with Crisco first?
- [08:44]
A
Yes. Crisco was a product that they invented around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. And Crisco is hydrogenated cottonseed oil. And what that means is it's solidified by a process called hydrogenation, also known as hardening. They chemically add hydrogen molecules to the liquid oil, and that solidifies it. That's why they call it hardening. They were on their way to making, like, candles and soap out of cottonseed oil. But when they tweaked the recipe just a little bit, one batch came out kind of pearly and soft. And they're like, hey, wow, that sure looks a lot like lard. You know what? I bet we could sell it as a substitute. And so they did. This was in an era where there was absolutely no regulation whatsoever to protect consumers from advertising claims. They could make any claim that they wanted. And there was no scrutiny, no safety testing was ever done.
- [09:47]
C
The food is changing, baby. We got Secretary Thomas Massey now for Agriculture, we've got Joel Salatin in the usda. Things are moving. Things are shaking. I am absolutely elated. But you know what? It is more important than ever to stick beside the farmers and ranchers who are doing things right, which is why I love good ranchers. You're going to get 100% all American beef, chicken, pork wild caught seafood delivered to your door. We are so done with this imported crap, nasty meat in our grocery stores. We're using good ranchers. And now they've got brand new seed oil free chicken nuggets. Your kids are going to love this. And you don't have to worry about any ingredients. I checked that label front and back. It's fantastic. Nothing to worry about there. Which is something you can say about any brand, even any organic brand or whatever at the grocery store here or abroad. Go to goodranchers.com right now. Use code clark for a discount. Go to goodranchers dot com use code clark. Good ranchers, American meat delivered.
- [10:53]
B
What is a seed oil?
- [10:54]
A
Some of them are good, some of them are bad. Right? So there's really no perfect term that encapsulates the problematic oils that I'm talking about. Even on the COVID of my book, I call the subtitles how vegetable oils destroy your health. But really we're talking about eight oils that are all extracted from seeds. And those are corn, canola, cottonseed, soy, sunflower, safflower, rice bran and grape seed. Their history is they were byproducts of other industries. The cotton seeds actually were free, right? Because cotton seeds were a byproduct of the textile industry making cotton cloth. And they just had all these piles of cotton seeds sitting around rotting in the sun. And chemists knew that they contain fat. And they're like, oh, we know there's got to be some way we can make some money off of this stuff. And so that was how cottonseed oil was the first vegetable oil that ultimately entered the food supply, but not in the form of a liquid oil. It entered the food supply in the form of this hydrogenated oil. And I bring that up because today we know hydrogenated oils contain unnatural fatty acids called trans fatty acids. And these are not healthy. They have toxic effects in our body. Back in the day, McDonald's fries were fried in beef towel, thanks to the American Heart Association. They switched that out for a vegetable oil because the vegetable oils didn't have cholesterol and there was less saturated fat. So the American Heart association said, no more beef tallow. We got to use this hydrogenated fat. Right? And then it became pretty clear a couple decades later that that hydrogenated fat was not good for us. For real this time. You know, the first time, they were just taking on faith that the American Heart association had our backs. But when they switched to the hydrogenated oil, lots of studies showed this is having detrimental effects in our bodies. It's bad for the liver. There's some enzyme problems it's causing. So let's get rid of these. And then when they got rid of the hydrogenated oils, they had no substitute because the American Heart association said, you can't use tallow. That was still in play. And so what they did was they just put the liquid oils in there. But the liquid oils are more toxic and worse for us than the hydrogenated fats.
- [13:18]
B
So then why would the American Heart association say that? What were they being told or how were they being blackmailed or given bad science to say, you know, this instead of tallow?
- [13:29]
A
The American Heart association is the source of the bad science. Procter and gamble gave them $1.7 million. That was given to a scientist named Ancel Keys, whose interest was proving that animal fats were unhealthy, that animal fats were causing heart attacks. That was his goal in life.
- [13:48]
B
Why was it his mission?
- [13:49]
A
Nobody really knows. I'm just looking at, like, what he said, the words that he said. I feel like what. When I look at his story and the way he talked about people who suffered from heart attacks, the way he talked. Talked about people who were obese and overweight at the time with such disrespect. He said things like, if the fat man would only take his health seriously. So I believe he was probably kind of from this temperance movement space, the temperance movement being, you know, fat is a sinful, gluttonous thing. Delicious food is a sinful, gluttonous thing. It's evil. You need to avoid it. So that's just kind of. My guess is that's where he was coming from. But also, he clearly was Driven by ego. He wanted to get credit to be as being the man who explained finally what was causing heart attacks. Because that was a great mystery at the time. In the 1940s and 50s, heart attacks were not a problem. Twenty years prior to that. And all of a sudden heart attacks were killing men in their prime. This was the words that they used in their 40s, age 40 and 50, left and right, people were dropping dead with heart attacks. And President Eisenhower, one of the most popular presidents, he also suffered a heart attack. And that's what really put the word heart attack on the map. And then that's what supercharged it as a goal of the American Heart Assaul Association. And they had had. They knew about Ancel Keys. He was influential from the beginning in the American Heart Association. They kind of ignored him at first. But then when Procter and Gamble donated $1.75 million and they sold oil, it was just an alignment of interest there. Because if animal fat is bad as Ancel Keys wanted it to be, then oil is the natural solution. And that's what Ancel Keys and the American Heart association, they just started to make that assertion. They had no data.
- [15:53]
B
But the irony is that the vegetable oils that were created to curb heart attacks actually are causing heart attacks. Is that correct?
- [16:01]
A
That is correct. This is the most incredible story when you look at it from the perspective of what we thought was happening, which was just a wonderful organization, the American Heart association, finally solving the mystery of heart disease. That's what doctors learned, that's what everybody still learns, still in colleges, it's taught. But the reality is that there was never any evidence that saturated fat or animal products caused heart disease. And in fact there was evidence that they had already collected that smoking was causing the heart attacks, but they suppressed that. So you see, this is really a huge hidden story. And as it turns out, these vegetable oils are so unhealthy that yes, they cause heart attacks. They contribute to every metabolic disease, every inflammatory disease, every degenerative disease that is known to medicine.
- [17:01]
B
So there's this guy, his name is Lane Norton. He's got a PhD in nutritional sciences. I don't know if you've ever heard of him. He says that there is no evidence that seed oils increase inflammation, that it's just crappy diet and food high in calories. So what is your response?
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A
He is not aware of the bodies of evidence that every that that I write about in all three of my books. And he's taken apparently no interest in looking into them. He has never come out actually and debunked any of my claims or my ideas personally. He's talked about other people who are sounding the alarm on these seed oils and some of their theories, but he's never talked about mine.
- [17:41]
B
So what is yours? What evidence have you found of what it's specifically doing in the body and how we know that it's the seed oils causing it?
- [17:47]
A
So the evidence that I look at comes from other fields of study that are outside the tip, what the typical PhD in nutrition science ever gets to see. And those are coming from, for example, within the edible oil industry itself. So there is an association of oil chemists called the American Oil Chemists Society that I belong to. And there's chat groups that, you know, get posted where people who run factories that are refining these oils are having problems with various contaminants that they can't get rid of. And it all comes down to this chemical problem that makes these oils so toxic, which is called oxidation. Oxidation is a very big concept in chemistry, and it's just not taught to doctors to the degree that it should be for them to have the understanding of how these ox. These oxidized products are real. They're not made up. These are real toxins that exist in the food supply. I'm just getting at some of the evidence that this. That PhDs in nutrition do not learn. It's not just Lane Norton.
- [19:02]
B
It's all of them, the people that are naysayers. They claim that there isn't any proof. So that's why I wanted to have you on, is to debunk this once and for all, because I've read your books. But you know, the short version. I know that there's a lot there and it's all in your book, but the short version that would be like how you would describe it to a fifth grader is perfect.
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A
The problem is that these oils are unstable. They're made out of molecules that break, kind of like glass. You know, if you hold a glass in your hand, it's a useful object. The polyunsaturated fats that are in the seeds as nature makes them. Those molecules are useful. They are nutrients, like omega 3. It's one of these polyunsaturates. It's useful. Our. It's a building block for our body cells. We can use it just like that. Glass is useful. Oxygen comes along and attacks the polyunsaturates and it's like breaking the Gl. It's like just taking a mallet right to that. That glass and all of a Sudden, something that was useful is now dangerous. Those little shards are kind of like the broken bits of polyunsaturated fatty acid molecules are toxins. And those broken bits of molecules that are toxic, they can harm our body cell membranes, and they promote all kinds of cellular imbalance and all diseases known to man. There's this one term that is just so important to understand. It's called oxidation and oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is a state of cellular imbalance that is incompatible with normal cell function. And once you've got too much of that going on, you are going to get a disease. And maybe an even simpler way of just describing what vegetable oils in our diet do to us is they deplete our bodies of antioxidants. Right? We all hear about antioxidant supplements we're supposed to be taking. Vitamin E is an important antioxidant. Vitamin C is an antioxidant. When you deplete your body of antioxidants, nothing can work, right? And that's how we start getting diseases. We get inflammatory diseases that cause things like asthma and autoimmune diseases and, you know, joint problems and skin inflammation like eczema. We get degenerative diseases that cause degeneration in our brain tissue like Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease. We can get degenerative joint disease, so we get dementia and arthritis out of the degeneration that these oils can promote. And then we also get metabolic disease. And metabolic disease has to do with regulating our body weight and with our appetites and what we hunger for and what we crave for. And vegetable oils make us hungry all the time. We have a word now that wasn't in the American language, hangry. That wasn't a word when I was growing up. But that's from vegetable oils, because they change our metabolism so that we can't burn our own body fat and we have to eat more often and we crave sugar.
- [22:02]
B
Interesting. So. So being hangry is a sign that your body isn't getting enough good energy to feed the brain.
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A
Exactly. It's a sign of metabolic damage. And we actually have. Medical science has identified a name for this metabolic damage. We call it insulin resistance, and that's the known precursor to type 2 diabetes.
- [22:24]
B
Now, hang on a minute, Dr. Shanahan, because I'm told everything is about carbs and sugar when it comes to type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance. So are carbs and sugar just the scapegoats for seed oils?
- [22:36]
A
You can absolutely say that, yes, because they've gotten all the attention lately, right? Like, dial it back when I was in medical school, the blame was on fats, just fats in general. Like it didn't matter, animal or plant, all fats were bad. But fast forward to the year 2000. Suddenly the focus came to sugar and carbohydrates. But really all along, the worst thing in the food supply has been these vegetable oils because they contain toxins. Vegetable oils do things to our bodies and our metabolism that carbohydrates simply cannot do. Because when we overeat carbohydrates, it's not good. It makes us build fat. It can harm our tissues by a process called glycation. But the carbohydrates build normal body fat that our cells can use for energy. Vegetable oils, what they do, I've said they do two things. They deplete our bodies of antioxidants. And it's something I haven't actually said yet was that they change the composition of our body fat. They change the chemistry of our body fat so that our body fat is more polyunsaturated, more liquidy. And that changes the, you know, does change actually the nature of our fat and how it looks and feels.
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B
I think it's interesting you bring up that it changes how our fat looks and feels. So is there a connection between seed oils and cellulite?
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A
I believe that there is, absolutely. Because the fat that we build is softer and it needs more support to not get all lumpy. And that comes from connective tissue like collagen. Collagen is the backbone molecule for our skin and all of our connective tissues. And you know, it's what people get injected into their skin to make it look youthful. We, we smear collagen on our skin, but our bodies make collagen, of course, and oxidative stress reduces our body's ability to manufacture collagen. So it's kind of a double duty damage to our body fat. Instead of being nice and soft and round and plump, you know, like, like baby fat, it's, it's lumpy and cottage cheesy looking because the fat itself is chemically changed and there's not enough structure to it because our bodies can't make collagen because of all the oxidative stress damaging our cellular functions at that level.
- [25:09]
B
Recently we learned from Zen Honeycut on.
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C
This show that 93% of food in drink in public schools tested for high levels of glyphosate, which is creating leaky.
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B
Gut in kids and all sorts of.
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C
Problems from severe allergies.
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B
To asthma and mental health concerns.
- [25:23]
C
It is my opinion that if your kids are still attending formal school, meaning private or public, and unless they have a specific real food program at this school that is addressing these issues, you must pack their lunches. A fantastic addition to the lunchbox that they're going to love is lemonade from Squeeze Juice Juice. Squeeze Juice is made fresh and shipped cold from a small non GMO family farm in California. Never from concentrate, no water or sugar added 100 mandarin, pomegranate juice and antioxidant lemonades. They're shipped cold so you can take a really cool refreshing drink as soon as you open the box.
- [26:00]
B
Squeeze Juice is the cleanest juice in.
- [26:02]
C
Lemonade on the market. Besides making it yourself at home, it is the same ingredient wise you're just paying for somebody else to do the work for you. Go to shop.squeezejuice.com and use code ALEX for 25% off that shop.squeezejuice.com with code ALEX for 25% off Squeeze Juice straight to your door. Make lunches smarter, not harder Guess who loves and endorses Masa chips? Dr. Kate Shanahan. She actually served them to my crew who went to her home to set up the cameras for us to do this interview. As I'm sure that you can imagine, Dr. Kate has high standards for seed oil, free snacks and masa chips passed her test. Thick, extremely crunchy, very salty. Made with grass fed beef tallow, real salt and organic corn. Masa chips are the number one best tasting and best textured seed oil free tortilla chips made by a young family with one mission taking on big food one chip at a time guys. The MAHA movement is full speed ahead so we have got to support the parallel snack economy started by people like masa chips. But since it is a small business and family running it, at least for now, Masa chips are a little pricier. To help ease the cost a little bit, I'm going to give you 20% off with code real Alex Clark on your first purse purchase@masachips.com that's code realexclark for 20% off. At masachips.com they've got Cabanero, a lime flavor, cinnamon sugar and more. The best tasting beef tallow chips or masa chips.
- [27:32]
B
So we know what seed oils we should not cook with or have as ingredients in our food. What are the things that we should be cooking our food in?
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A
In the book I talk about the delightful dozen. So there's a lot. There's, there's a Lot of options. But I just want to list out my favorite five because I love them so much.
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B
Please.
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A
That is butter, olive oil, peanut oil, sesame oil, and coconut oil. Now, I have to say one thing about olive oil because. And coconut and peanut, I guess because these come in an unrefined, like, virgin type oil and a refined oil. The refined are not so great. What we always want want from any oil is for it to be unrefined virgin. It's just a better quality. It has nutrients in it, and by golly, it's what people have always been eating.
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B
What is your favorite brand of olive oil?
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A
Well, I wish I had a brand that, like, would sponsor me, but really I use Kirkland because it's a good quality. Generally from California. There are quality control measures, and it's inexpensive and it tastes really good.
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B
Is it true that you shouldn't be cooking with olive oil over a certain heat?
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A
So there's this thing called smoke point. Right, that's what you're referring to. You need to cook with a oil that has a high smoke point so that it doesn't smoke. Right. That term smoke point, I suspect, is a term that was created by the vegetable oil industry to sell their refined oils to the restaurant industry because they have no flavor. Right. So they didn't really have any other selling point other than. Yeah, well, they're cheap too, but. Yeah. So that has nothing to do with health. The smoke point of an olive oil varies depending on what you're cooking. So on some circumstances, you can measure it and it'll be 300 degrees. And in some circumstances you can measure it and it'll be as high as 470 degrees. And these high, supposedly high smoke point oils like canola, well, its smoke point is generally considered to be around 390°. That's right in the middle range range of olive oil. Just checking the basic facts, the numbers fall apart and it doesn't even make sense on that basic level. But on a chemical level, it doesn't make sense either. And so there. Without going into the details, you're just gonna have to take my word for it.
- [29:57]
B
How do you feel about palm or sunflower oil? Because those are two that are used in a lot of clean snacks.
- [30:02]
A
Yeah. So palm oil generally will be refined. And when it comes to the categories, how I categorize oil, I have actually three categories. I've got a good one, the ones that I mentioned, like my favorite fiber in there, and one that you should avoid. That's the hateful eight. And then there's the okay but not great. And so refined palm oil is in that okay but not great category because of its fatty acid profile. Whereas if it's unrefined palm oil, that is a healthy oil. But that's not what you're going to find in the, you know, in grocery stores because they use the cheap stuff. And then sunflower, unfortunately, that is not good because it's always, it's one of the hateful eight. And I know it has like this healthy aura and healthy glow, but the fact is the oil has the same problems that soy oil and all the others do is to a slightly lesser degree. But when the bottles leave the factory, there are toxins in the bottle and the same issues with the magnification of the concentration of toxins as time goes by, as you cook with it and so on. And it can harm your body in the exact same way. So it doesn't really deserve that healthy glow.
- [31:17]
B
We're told a calorie is a calorie. Calories in, calories out. Why is this some of the worst advice to give somebody who is trying to lose weight?
- [31:26]
A
Because it turns out that if you want to lose weight, you do have to count calories. But the idea that losing weight by counting calories is going to make your metabolism healthy is very bad idea. Because when your metabolism is damaged by vegetable oils and you have insulin resistance, when you burn your body fat, your cells experience oxidative stress and that brings about more disease. So the reason you've gained weight in the first place is because your body fat isn't serving your cells with energy and you get hungry and you have to eat something instead. Right between meals. Right. Your body fat is supposed to be what feeds you between meals. You're not supposed to get hungry 2, 3, 4, 5 hours after a meal. You're supposed to be able to go all day if you need to, just burning that body fat. That's why we have 100,000 calories. If you're a normal weight, you have close to that many calories, calories. But the idea that a calorie is just a calorie, it doesn't matter how you lose weight, just lose weight that is going to improve your metabolic health is exactly wrong because, well, you know, if you're burning fat that your cells don't want to burn, you're going to further damage those cells. And that is exactly what we are now seeing. We are running this experiment thanks to Ozempic because it's helping people cut calories like no other drug has ever Done. And as a consequence of that, they are forcing their cells to subsist on this body fat that doesn't give their cells energy. And this is something I talk about, like how why this happens in dark calories, to understand why this happens. But what happens is your body starts going after your muscle. They're losing muscle mass. Normally when you lose weight, you lose a certain portion of that weight has come from your muscle. And normally they say that's around 25%, which is a lot, and that's too much. And that's also. That's a whole separate conversation. It really should not be that. But that's because we all have insulin resistance. But when people are on Ozempic and they lose weight, 50 or 60% instead of 25%, as this baseline of the weight that is lost comes from your muscle and your lean mass, that includes your bone and it can even include your organs. People's heart muscle can shrink. People's brains can actually shrink. When you are cutting calories and forcing your body to break itself down, break down essential parts for fuel so that your cells don't die of lack of energy. That's what's happening with Ozempic. And we're going to be seeing all kinds of bizarre problems down the road from this strange state of affairs that people are putting their metabolisms into. We're already starting to see that. I've spoken with some orthopedic surgeons who say that they're seeing weird complications of neurosurgery.
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B
Now, are you familiar with Dr. Tina Moore's work on Ozempic?
- [34:37]
A
No.
- [34:38]
B
Okay. She's a, she's a functional medicine doctor and she's very pro Ozempic. Her stance is that in small doses, especially when you're dealing with insulin resistance, that it's actually incredibly helpful if you are using it in very small amounts, which is interesting. I mean, she's like the only person in this field that says she has the same food values and things as you and I, but yet she's so pro this drug. What do you think about that?
- [35:01]
A
I've used the drug and it has helped people to curb their appetites. And, and that's important because when you are insulin resistant, and 99 plus percent of the population is another shocking and important fact, when you are insulin resistant, you crave carbohydrate, you get hungry more often, you have an unnatural kind of hunger that in dark calories. I coined the term pathologic hunger. It's so important to understand that Ozempic is curbing Pathologic hunger. And in that sense it can be helpful. But I really don't want people to focus on rapid weight loss while their body fat is still this potentially dangerous fuel, while their cells cannot handle, while their cells are deprived, I'm sorry, of, of antioxidants.
- [35:51]
B
So what would you say if somebody's pre diabetic experiencing insulin resistance? What is the best way to get the body in a better metabolic state and ability to lose weight, in your opinion?
- [36:03]
A
What you want to do is you want to build meals that sustain your energy until the next meal. Right. So. And the number of meals per day that I recommend people start at is 3. I know intermittent fasting is a real popular thing right now. I would argue that it might not be a great thing if you are seriously metabolically damaged. But I teach you how to tell. And it has to do with how do you feel when you're hungry? It's very simple. Do you have this pathologic hunger which involves brain fog and a few other things? So what I recommend is building meals with healthy fats that are going to be from the delightful dozen with enough protein to meet your daily needs and then with antioxidant rich foods and vitamin and mineral rich foods. Because that is absolutely essential to rehabilitating your body's ability to reduce oxidative stress. And that is how you're going to Recover from type 2 diabetes and all insulin resistant related diseases. All metabolic disease is related to insulin resistance and this abnormal energy state that everybody is in thanks to oxidative stress. Thanks mostly to vegetable oils.
- [37:19]
B
If we have all of this evidence about vegetable oils, why aren't they being banned from our food supply just like they did with trans fats?
- [37:27]
A
Well, the American Heart association says they're heart healthy. So, so that is the problem. The problem is the American Heart association is controlling what doctors learn. And when doctors and all dietitians and health practitioners believe that vegetable oils are heart healthy, that is what their patients hear. And the American Heart association essentially is a absolutely corrupt organization that has no care or concern for human health. They have been controlling what doctors learn for decades and they've been controlling what Americans eat for decades. And you know, I'm so glad I'm on your show because I wanted to share this with you. I think that Dark Calories is not really a diet book, it's a political book. Because there is nothing more political than controlling what the population eats. That is the most foundational way of controlling a population is by controlling their health. And the American Heart association has grown a population of Americans that is now unhealthy and that is, wow, just an infinite supply of customers for the largest industry in our country, which is the so called healthcare industry. Everyone calls it now the sick care industry. Right. That is the number one industry and it's thanks to the American Heart Association. And this is a story that I think everybody who cares about politics needs to hear. The American Heart association is assisting the largest part of our economy, which is the healthcare industry, which runs the government, because the healthcare industry spends more on lobbying than any other industry. So you see how it's a political issue.
- [39:16]
B
Most of my audience is so on board with this. And then there's, there's a small number of them that are like, oh, I'm just so sick of talking about this, I'm so sick. But you and I understand this is so beyond, like you should just eat healthy. Exactly what you're saying, that this is a political movement which conservatives especially should care about. It's a political movement designed to control us. And so that is why I'm so passionate about this is because once I saw the corruption within the food, the medical industries, the pharma, I am understood all of the ties to our politics, it's all connected. And so if we fix pharma in this country, I believe we would see the good repercussions of that everywhere.
- [40:00]
A
Well, Alex, you know, I think the lever by which we got into this was doctors, the American Heart association first they controlled what doctors think. And so personally, I think that if we can expose the American Heart association for the corrupt organization that it is expose, knows the damage that they've done, which I believe the American Heart association is responsible for more deaths than any war criminal ever in history. They've literally, they've killed billions and they are responsible for the suffering of untold more billions because they created this nutrition ideology. They miseducate doctors into telling our patients to eat oil that couldn't be better designed to make them sick. You see. So it's just they are worse, I think, than the food industry because, you know, actually I've interviewed scientists within the food industry and they, they were warning, they were trying to warn actually doctors that taking away trans fats, taking away those toxic mildly toxic hydrogenated oils and replacing them with liquid vegetable oils was going to be a public health dis. And that's exactly what happened between the years 2000 and the year in 2020. So in that 20 year time frame, we doubled our consumption of liquid vegetable oil even as we eliminated, almost virtually eliminated trans fat and hydrogenated oils. When you look at the statistics on obesity in that same timeframe, it also nearly tripled. And incidentally, and this is important for those people who still think it's carbohydrates making us sick. Our consumption of carbohydrates went down. Our consumption of high fructose corn syrup went down by 60%. 60%, 6, 0.
- [41:49]
B
Really, in the past 20 years. I'm very surprised by that, Dr. Shanahan. I would have thought that high fructose corn syrup was going up.
- [41:57]
A
That's what everyone thinks. And again, you know, sugar is now becoming the scapegoat for crimes committed by vegetable oil. And I'm working to expose that this is the most important health and political issue of our times. I don't know if you're familiar with my other book, but I happen to have it right here. Deep Nutrition.
- [42:23]
B
Yes, Deep nutrition is phenomenal.
- [42:25]
A
Thank you. So that book was first published in 2009 and I wrote it in, you know, starting in 2002. So almost 20 years ago, I, I warned that we are going to see an increase in medication dependent youth and an increase in illness in young people. And that has come true because we have a worsening of our health across generations that we are seeing. And so the generation born today, thanks largely to vegetable oils and other lies about what healthy food is, that came from the American Heart Association. The generation born today has less of a chance at optimal health than any generation in human history. And it's just so tragic.
- [43:11]
B
Do you have skin concerns and allergies.
- [43:13]
C
That will not go away or improve? When was the last time you checked the ingredients in your makeup? When it comes to lightening your load of environmental toxins, makeup is a great place to start. I love to recommend Adele cosmetics because they are 100% transparent, holistic, toxin free makeup company that's made in the usa. And also she shares my conservative and Christian values. Adele cosmetics is a phenomenal Christmas gift idea for your daughter, your sister, your mom, or yourself. People are like, what should I ask for? What should I tell my husband? I want, you want Adele cosmetics. Luxe packaging, glass pots, gorgeous lipsticks. Adele was first created in 1999 because the owner had a health crisis and toxic makeup products were not helping. Adele makes their cosmetics in small batches without the use of parabens, synthetic fragrances or anything else on an ingredient list that's difficult to pretend pronounce. Everything from foundation to mascara to eyeshadow. It's all beautifully packaged and toxin free Because Adele searches for high quality ingredients, customers have found that their products have helped reduce inflammatory conditions like acne, redness, eczema and help restore balance to both oily and dry skin. Get a free foundation color match consultation at adel natural cosmetics.com and use code alex for 25% off that's adelnatural cosmetics.com and use code Alex for 25% off your order of completely toxin free natural makeup. Find everything in the description can we talk one on one for a sec? Are you drowning in student loan debt right now? Do you feel like there's no way out? Are you discovering that your entire family is affected by it? If you've got private student loan debt and are behind, you gotta call my friends at WireFi. Why refi refinances private student loans that others won't touch and provide you with a custom loan payment based on your ability to pay. They can reduce your monthly payment and your total cost and they don't care what your credit score is. WiFi is not a debt settlement company. You can tell your dad that you'll receive a low fixed interest rate that you couldn't get anywhere else and a pathway to making all the stress and worry come to an end. Just give them a call at 888-502-2612 that's 888-502-2612 or go to y refi.com that's letter y r e fy.com if private student loan debt is wrecking your life, it doesn't have to call Whyrefy at 888-502-2612 or go to wirefi.com may not be available in all states.
- [45:40]
B
What is more powerful in determining how susceptible we are to chronic disease, in your opinion? Is it diet or is it genetics?
- [45:47]
A
Diet, because diet influences your DNA. That's what the that's why the subtitle of Deep nutrition is why your genes need traditional food. And in that book I define and describe what traditional food is and I reiterate that in Dark Calories. But yeah, so it's very important to know what not to eat. Dark Calories is mostly about that, but Deep Nutrition is all about the evidence of why I support the kind of diet that I do promote and tell people how to follow in Dark calories. The last third of Dark Calories is all about the practical about how to make those three meals a day be sustaining, satiating, delicious, delicious, and how to make them fast.
- [46:30]
B
My audience will love Dark Calories because they really like Things simplified. How to. You have exactly how to strategize going through your cabinets, in your fridge to get rid of things with seed oil. Like best practices, exactly what to eat for what meals, you know, different options, how to build the perfect meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Like all of these tips and tricks, it's so helpful. So I recommend everybody get it. And it's also, yes, she's a doctor. She has all the evidence laid in there for people that like getting in the weeds. But then so much of it too is just very simplified, very practical and super educational. So I am curious, if vegetable oils are so bad, why are all baby formulas required to include them?
- [47:13]
A
Vegetable oils actually contain fatty acids that our bodies do need. There's two types of polyunsaturated fatty acids called omega 3 and omega 6. And without those, we can develop deficiency diseases. We need Omega 3, which is a polyunsaturated fatty acid acid. We need that for brain building, we need that for our cell membranes and we need Omega 6. If we don't get that, we get skin diseases. And again, actually our brains are built out of omega 6 fatty acids as well. So it's just unfortunately that they use soy, corn, canola and cottonseed instead of things like grass fed dairy, which also contains Omega 3 and Omega 6. And healthier solid, healthier whole food sources. Like it could contain meal like, like meal of sunflower seeds or even just like peanut peanuts right there, There are ways that they could do it without those oils. It's just, that's the cheapest way. And you know, unfortunately a lot of women who are breastfeeding are working women and they're, you know, they tend to be from the barely scraping by socioeconomic category. And they need that stuff to be cheap, cheap. And so the ingredients have to be cheap. That's just the demand. That's just the way the world we live in right now.
- [48:34]
B
Does seed oil lead to sunburns?
- [48:37]
A
It can, absolutely, because it promotes inflammation. It also, where we store fat is right under our skin, subcutaneous fat. And when we eat more of these seed oils, our subcutaneous fat is more prone to inflammation.
- [48:50]
B
Did skin cancer exist before seed oil oils?
- [48:53]
A
Yes, it did, but it was less, less common. Far less common. Cancer is a, is actually a metabolic disease and it's due to, again, to oxidative stress. Everything is due to oxidative stress. And so you can get oxidative stress through other things, through malnutrition, through too much alcohol, through too much smoking, through other toxins. So yes. All these bad diseases could have existed before seed oils. It's just that seed oils really gave them, you know, they made them just so common that they're now. Now common household terms.
- [49:24]
B
Can we trust foods that say organic or non GMO but contain seed oils?
- [49:29]
A
No. So organic seed oil just means that they did not add hexane, but still organic sunflower oil, you name it. Oil will contain toxins as it leaves the factory. Serious toxins.
- [49:42]
B
What should people bake with when a recipe calls for vegetable oil or Crisco?
- [49:47]
A
Well, butter. That's my bias.
- [49:51]
B
I say lard. I say butter or lard. What do you mean, think about lard?
- [49:54]
A
Yes. I don't have a lot of experience with it just because I can't really get my hands on it. And I love butter so much. But my sister renders her own lard, and because she. That she gets from a farmer right in her neighborhood, and she uses it more than she uses butter. And she loves it for vegetables, for baked goods. But she says it really tastes great on vegetables, which I can't imagine, because I don't know what could taste better than butter.
- [50:18]
B
Well, I'll tell you what.
- [50:19]
C
Yeah.
- [50:19]
B
Butter for vegetables is phenomenal. And then in baked goods, I think lard makes baked goods taste phenomenal. It's like, wow, this is like the best cake I've ever had. What's the. Like, what's the secret ingredient? And it's the lard. So I always tell people to try lard. I know that that name. We just associate that with, like, fat, and then we're scared. But you've got it. Like, you've just got to get rid of that, like, preconceived idea. One thing that I get asked a lot, and I honestly do not know the answer. Dr. Shanahan, I was very anxious to ask you is I'm really curious if putting seed oils on our body in beauty products and lotions is as harmful as ingesting them.
- [50:58]
A
It's nowhere near as harmful because it just stays on the surface. And so if it's going to do any damage, it's just going to be surface damage. Whatever toxins they may have, they're just going to kind of sit on the surface. And our skin cells, those that we see that we are spreading all this stuff on, that's all dead cells. Cells. So it can't do that much harm. You know, theoretically, some of it could get absorbed. None of these studies are done, but I would say that you can be confident that it's not Going to be toxic. It just might not really be that great for your skin.
- [51:31]
B
I am so happy to hear that. Like, finally, like people, I think everything is always just like such bad news. On my episodes, they find out all these evil things.
- [51:39]
C
But look, we have a piece of.
- [51:40]
B
Amazing news from Dr. Shanahan because, like, I have amazing, amazing skincare products or whatever that have some, you know, some kind of seed oil in it. And people get tripped up on the ingredients because we know how bad they are for food. But what advice do you have for navigating eating out at a restaurant but trying to avoid seed oils?
- [51:58]
A
I used to say, you know, things like, well, find out what oil they're cooking. Just ask your server. That is a hopeless exercise because you're just going to sit there and weigh this. Always going to be a seed oil. They're not going to know most of the time. Right. And so what I've done instead is I've just taken to say, saying, do you have anything back there that you can cook for me right now in butter? And I don't mean butter oil, butter flavored oil, I mean actual butter. And I want to break that down because there's two parts to it. So one is just asking if they have butter, which hopefully they do. So far everywhere I personally have asked for that, the answer has been yes, thankfully. The other thing is cook for me right now, because we don't realize this. I didn't know this, but a lot of food, even at fancy restaurants, are partially cooked, you know, before the busy rush hour, so they can get the meal to you faster. And they will often generally be partially cooked in some kind of vegetable oil. So it has to be like, if it's going to be a piece of meat, it has to be something that can be just cooked in a few minutes right there. So fish is often really quick to cook. You know, obviously steaks. If it's going to be vegetables, it would have to be something like, I mean, they can always do a salad. Throw together a salad and, you know, you can just skip the dressing. You're better off skipping the dressing and just asking for toppings that will make your salad taste delicious, like some avocado or some cheese, or get a little.
- [53:23]
B
Glass bottle on Amazon with a lid and key and make your own dressing and put it in your purse.
- [53:29]
A
Yes, great. Exactly. Yeah. And they even sell like those little plastic things like of ketchup size things. They even sell that with olive oil in there.
- [53:37]
B
Thanksgiving is coming up. What are going to be the top items to avoid at Thanksgiving, if you're not in control of cooking the food.
- [53:45]
A
I would say it's going to be the vegetables, really, because there's a good chance that there will be some kind of weird oil involved in that.
- [53:58]
B
What about the pies?
- [54:00]
A
So pie, interestingly enough, is often made now with palm oil. And refined palm oil is in my middle category of okay but not great. So it's not that bad. Okay.
- [54:14]
B
So. So that's good news for people. You can have the pie, but maybe skip the vegetables.
- [54:19]
A
What a crazy world we're living in. And this is. This is really. This is just a guess, you know, if you're not in control of the food, I mean, maybe you want to just like, say, hey, can I look at. Can I just take a look at the package? Just.
- [54:31]
B
Or offer like, can I be in charge of different sides or desserts? And then you obviously know because you brought it, what's in it. So I always say, like, what can I make, you know, so that I can be in control of more of it. When it comes to feeding a child at home, what is the most important item on the plate that they should eat? Is it the vegetable or is it something else?
- [54:52]
A
Get them good meats, animal proteins. Right? And. And probably the cheapest way of doing that is getting pasture raised eggs. So eggs really are a superfood. And if you get eggs, you know, that are pasture raised, which most grocery stores have, something that's at least a little bit better than the standard conventional egg. And then the other second thing is dairy. If your child doesn't have a dairy allergy, you can actually help prevent them from getting one by feeding them dairy. We're learning this with allergies, that you can help prevent allergies by feeding them the food. So dairy also is a superfood. I mean, it was created by nature to nourish children, growing children. Organic is good. Pasture. Pasture raised is better. Now, pasture raised is not the same thing as pasteurized. All milk sold in grocery stores is pasteurized, almost all milk, as opposed to raw. But pasture raised means the cow's got grass and that is their natural diet. It's going to be a lot healthier. Your dairy product, whether it's milk or yogurt or cottage cheese or cheese, any dairy product, superfood. So really, I would say cheese, eggs, you know, meats, beef, and if you can get them to, like, liver at an early age, that is, like, going to be an amazing superpower that your child will have that will give them quite the edge over the other children they're competing against for Joseph jobs, college spots, and in sports.
- [56:21]
B
So put Dark Calories by Dr. Kate Shanahan on your early Christmas list. Tell everybody. This is the book that I want for Christmas. Dr. Shanahan, if you could provide one remedy, and I know that's hard to choose, but if you could provide one remedy to heal a sick culture, what would you say that is for you?
- [56:39]
A
Appreciate those people who make food from scratch, because right now those people who do that are mostly unsung heroes. And I include in this, I gotta include the farmers too. We need to celebrate them. These are people who are bringing life giving sustenance out of the earth. What is more miraculous and amazing than that? And I think that deserves attention. Cherish tax breaks, whatever you gotta do to make more people want to do that and then also learn how to cook it.
- [57:15]
B
I love that you said this, Dr. Shanahan, because I, I not to end on a note like this, but I think it's important to say. I just heard that farmers are experiencing higher suicide rates than almost any other profession right now because of the corruption that they're dealing with. They can't grow what they want. They, they're, they want, A lot of them are wanting to grow this nutrient dense food for us, but so many people are uneducated and they're wanting to get their food out there. They're wanting to make a living, but they have no one to buy. It's just this whole thing of, of what, what's causing that. But it's really sa. So important. I'm so glad that you said that to thank the cooks that are, that are, you know, taking the time, taking.
- [57:52]
C
The hours out of their day to.
- [57:53]
B
Make these meals for their families and their communities and then also the farmers. I love that. Thank you so much, Dr. Shanahan, for coming on Culture Apothecary.
- [58:02]
A
Thank you, Alex. This has been a high powered conversation and I so hope that, you know, I've reached some of your audience and we can all join together to just get these toxic oils out of our diet and expose the corruption and fraud. Fraud from the American Heart association.
- [58:23]
B
I love Dr. Kate's focus on how we need to educate the doctors so that we can really change culture on this front. I hope you will read her book. It's just so good. I hope that you guys trust me at this point when I'm making book recommendations, I think I can toot my own horn and say that I'm pretty good at picking books and her stuff. Is just phenomenal. Her research is rock solid, so I hope that you'll take the time and enjoy those. Make sure you're subscribed to the show if you're not on YouTube real Alex Clark, but also anywhere you listen to podcasts. New episodes every Monday and Thursday night at 6pm Pacific 9pm Eastern. We are healing a set culture physically, mentally and spiritually. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.