So you’ve figured out that seed oils are superbad for you and decided to start avoiding them?
That’s GREAT, since avoiding toxic and inflammatory seed oils is one of the most important parts to eating really healthy and optimizing your health for the long run.
They’re so bad, because they’re really inflammatory and cause a lot of oxidation, free radicals and oxidative stress, leading to obesity and chronic disease, among other things (more about why they’re so bad here).
Either way, since this is a post specifically about the foods containing a lot of these seed (and vegetable) oils, let’s get right into it, shall we?
Table of Contents
- Foods With Seed Oils – The Worst Offenders You'll Want To Eat Less (None) Of
- Reading The Labels
- Summarization
- Related Reading:
- Share The Article:
(This page might have some affiliate links (for healthier, seed oil free chips) that we earn a commission if you purchase through at no additional cost to you).
Foods With Seed Oils – The Worst Offenders You’ll Want To Eat Less (None) Of
Make sure you read through the entire article, since there are some great additional seed oil avoidance tips right below this list as well, but here are the most common and worst offenders that have bad vegetable and seed oils in them:
- Chips – Tortilla, potato, sweet potato, vegetable chips, you name it, and they’ll almost always contain loads of inflammatory vegetable or seed oil, and generally fried in them as well, making them even worse. Definitely one of the worst offenders!
However, there are the rare ones that don’t contain them, such as these tortilla chips made with grass-fed tallow and sea salt,, or these sweet potato chips using coconut oil and sea salt, so you’re definitely not out of options in the chips department when shopping online, even when avoiding seed oils!
Related Reading: Best Pork Rinds (great chips alternative as well), Grass-fed VS Grain-fed Meat [And Fats].
- Pre-cooked meals – A lot of these often contain seed and vegetable oil as well, so try to find the healthier ones that don’t if you’re into this type of ready-made food.
- Fried restaurant food – Fried foods when eating out are generally fried in seed or vegetable oils (you can always ask to make sure), and is thus something you really want to eat less, ideally none, of.
- Canned Seafood – Sadly it’s all too common for these to be packed in seed and vegetable oil, making them rather unhealthy despite fish overall being very healthy, my recommended best canned clams and oysters are all packed in either water or olive oil though (tomato sauce would have been fine as well, healthwise).
- Most processed dips, sauces and dressings – Very often, these pre-made dips, sauces and dressings are made with a vegetable/seed oil base, making them contain lots of it, but as with the chips there are those without them here as well (read the labels, more on that below). I plan to make a post listing some healthy options of these, so, watch out for that, but for now, there are a few good ones listed either in my article on the healthiest snacks or the best superfoods.
- Margarines and plant-based fats and oils – Duh, these are the ones we’re trying to avoid in their purest forms, so of course they’re among the worst offenders and made up pretty much entirely of these unhealthy seed and vegetable oils, so, avoid these, and here’s a list with the specific oils to avoid to help you out (as well as which healthy fats to use instead).
- Plant-based milks, cheeses, yogurts and ice cream (dairy substitutes) – Sorry to burst your bubble, vegans or “health-conscious” people, but most of these are not healthy, due to these seed oils that are often added to get the desired fat content. Real dairy is thus usually much healthier for you if you can tolerate it, but if not, coconut-based options such as coconut yogurt or ice cream are all good and fine :).
- Most breads – Although there are certainly breads that don’t have these oils, a lot of them do, and even if generally not in huge amounts, it’s still best to try to avoid those that do if you can (it all adds up).
- Most processed food with an ingredient label – This is the sad truth today and even though I strongly believe this will change in the future (it almost has to, imo), that might not be for quite some time yet, but, still good to know and keep in mind when shopping.
- Some honorable mentions include – Pre-marinated meats and poultry, crackers (similar to breads), cookies, soft tortillas and wraps, some canned legumes (but far from all).
And with that list out of the way, let’s move on to:
Reading The Labels
Knowing which foods have a lot of seed oils in them in advance (therefore this list) can be a great way to make sure you’re not buying any processed foods that contain them during your next run to the supermarket, but it’s however, as touched upon, not a substitute for actually reading the labels, since that will tell you with certainty if a certain food has them in it or not.
This can save you a lot of hassle and avoid you still buying some stuff with seed or vegetable oils in them by mistake, and will also allow you to find the specific foods that don’t have these seed oils in them, even when most similar products do (and thus let you enjoy your favorite types of foods, just seed oil free).
If you look at my list of superfoods or healthy snacks for example, you’ll see that some of the foods included are foods that are common offenders and generally very rich in seed and vegetable oils, just in more healthy versions – without seed oils (canned seafood, popcorn, precooked meals, protein and granola/energy bars, and healthy dips, sauces and dressings and even chips [potato, sweet potato, tortilla, kale and seaweed] are included), so check those lists out, particularly the healthy snacks one, if you’re looking for some very healthy and very seed oil free snacks and superfoods.
And as for reading the labels, here’s a list of specific inflammatory seed and vegetable oils to avoid (that should help if you’re new to the game of avoiding seed oils!).
The most common ones of those however, are corn oil, rapeseed or canola oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, rice bran oil, grapeseed oil, sunflower oil and safflower oil.
And with that said, let’s summarize this little article :).
Summarization
That’s a made-up word by the way, but for the article in short and key takeaways:
- Seed and vegetable oils are really bad for us.
- The worst food offenders with these oils in them are chips, fried restaurant food, canned seafood, precooked meals as well as dips, sauces and dressings, margarines and plant-based oils directly, plant-based dairy, breads and most processed foods, sadly.
- There are, however, healthy seed oil free alternatives to these foods, albeit a bit rare (see some of the links in the article above).
- Aside from the foods, learn which specific oils are problematic and to read the food labels to effectively avoid these oils (all included above, and label reading can also help you avoid more of the less bad, but still bad, added sugars!).
That be it.
Start avoiding your seed oils, today, and have a good and healthy one!
/Emil
Related Reading:
Best Vitamins & Supplements For Optimal Health (Take These)
Intuitive Testing/Healthy Intuition
Our Modern Processed Diet Still Causes Birth Defects!
Organic VS Non-organic Foods: 12 Key Differences – Worth It?
