Jeff Nobbs
@jeffnobbs
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Co-founder @ZeroAcreFarms on a mission to get seed oils out of our food system. Co-founder @KitavaKitchen.
Oakland, CA
Joined March 2009
Seed oils appear to cause obesity due to their high content of a specific type of fat called linoleic acid, a type of omega-6 polyunsaturated fat (PUFA). Here are some of the randomized controlled trials in humans that link seed oils & linoleic acid to disease and weight gain 👇.
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Something's changed in the last several decades that's led to skyrocketing obesity rates, but what is it?. Here's why calories, sugar, exercise, and red meat are unlikely drivers of obesity, and why seed oils are the most likely culprit from an epidemiological standpoint 👇
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For the last couple of years, I've been working with an incredible group of people on a stealth food company called @ZeroAcreFarms. Today, we announce our mission: to remove destructive "vegetable" oils from the food system. Here's why (thread) 👇.
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I'm excited to announce that Chipotle has invested in @ZeroAcreFarms through their Cultivate Next fund!. This is just a small first step, but highlights the possibility of a future where large restaurant chains move away from vegetable oils and seed oils.
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A molecule called HNE (4-Hydroxynonenal) has been recently described by researchers as playing a key role in obesity. HNE is a breakdown product of omega-6 fats, which come primarily from seed oils in our diets. Here's the evidence linking seed oil-derived HNE to weight gain 👇.
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I'm thrilled to announce that @ZeroAcreFarms has partnered with @shakeshack!. Starting today, select Shake Shack locations in New York are frying in Zero Acre oil instead of soybean oil. Why does this matter? 👇.
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In a 7-year study, participants who ate seed oils in the form of safflower oil & margarine had a 62% higher rate of death compared to the group eating olive oil & butter. Said another way, seed oils increase your risk of death more than heavy drinking or moderate smoking:
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"High consumption of soybean oil has been linked to obesity and diabetes and potentially autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression. Add now to this growing list ulcerative colitis, a form of IBD, characterized by chronic inflammation"
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In a 16-week trial in migraine sufferers, reducing omega-6 linoleic acid (LA) from 7% to 2.5% of calories led to a 30-40% reduction in headaches. Just boosting omega-3 helped, but also reducing omega-6 was 2x as effective. Migraines are a leading cause of disability worldwide.
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Vegetable oils (seed oils) may be the most likely culprit. While total calories have remained flat since the 1990s, calories from seed oils have increased 30%+. And since the 1960s, while consumption of all other fats has decreased, consumption of seed oils has about tripled.
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Even if you aren't persuaded by health reasons to avoid seed oils and vegetable oils, do it for the environment:. Since the 1960s, more agricultural land has been dedicated to oil crops than to all other crop types combined.
A thread on the environmental impact of food crops and vegetable oils. We dedicate a lot of land to crops. About 12% of all habitable land on Earth, over 1.5 billion hectares, is dedicated to food crops for human consumption, up from 300 million hectares a few hundred years ago.
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To avoid unwanted weight gain, migraines, cancer, heart disease, and death, it may be prudent to make the switch away from high-linoleic seed oils. The oils/fats lowest in linoleic acid are Cultured Oil from @ZeroAcreFarms (my company), tallow/dairy fats, and fruit oils (olive):
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Email I received: "I’ve been drinking a carton of Oatly Barista every day for 3 years and have just been told I am prediabetic and that my liver ALT is 42 and GGT is 75. These results are more than double my previous results in 2018. I am a pescatarian, dont' drink, don't smoke,.
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But this is all just correlation. Next up, I'll show the randomized controlled trials and biological mechanisms linking seed oils to obesity. In the meantime, check out the white paper on the subject at Additional citations at
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In another study, participants who increased their consumption of corn oil and margarine (high in omega-6 linoleic acid) had 86% more heart attacks, and for those aged 65 or older, a higher risk of death after 4 years:
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Oysters may be the one food that every diet should adopt, from vegan to carnivore. Nine reasons why:. 1) Like plants, oysters have no nervous system, presumably meaning they do not feel pain. If corn, yams, and peas are okay to eat from an ethical standpoint, oysters are too.
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Seed oil consumption is the most significant change in the human diet since obesity rates began to rise. These oils are now the most consumed food in the world after rice and wheat and make up 20% of our daily calories. They are the most likely cause of our obesity epidemic.
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Eating too many calories and sweets (sugar) are often blamed for rising obesity rates. But average sugar consumption has decreased and average caloric intake has remained flat for the past two decades while obesity rates grew more than 40% (from 30.5% in 2000 to 42.4% in 2018).
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In an 8-year study, participants who consumed more seed oils were 82% more likely to die from cancer than the control group consuming less seed oils. Despite randomization, the control group had 2x as many heavy smokers, but still experienced significantly fewer cancer deaths.
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In a 2-year randomized controlled trial, participants who consumed margarine made with more linoleic acid from seed oils had 7x the number of strokes, heart attacks, and cardiovascular deaths as the group eating margarine lower in linoleic acid.
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In a 9-week randomized controlled trial, women were given a daily high-fat breakfast that contained either soybean oil (high in linoleic acid) or olive oil (lower in linoleic acid). The group that consumed less linoleic acid lost ~80% more body fat.
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Globally, more vegetable oils are produced every year than all chicken, beef, cheese, and shrimp combined, and our consumption of these oils is predicted to grow significantly faster.
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@OnlyDylanHall @reallytanman Obesity rates in Japan have been growing exponentially in recent decades. Interestingly, calories have been going down while weight gain rises. Caloric intake was the same in 1975 as in 2013. During that same time, vegetable oil intake doubled, and since 1950 has increased 13x.
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The CDC cites lack of physical activity as a primary contributor to obesity and recommends we "aim for moderate physical activity for at least 150 minutes a week.". According to those guidelines, Americans are actually exercising more today than we were twenty years earlier.
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Vegetable oils have been implicated in weight gain, diabetes, cancer, cognitive decline, heart disease, autoimmune disease, and more. In randomized controlled trials, they increase risk of death by 62% –– more than heavy drinking or moderate smoking.
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In a 2-year trial, men were randomized into 3 groups & given different cooking oils to use at home. The men eating the least linoleic acid (LA) lost the most weight:. Soy/safflower oil: ~50-60% LA, lost 1.7 lb.Canola oil: ~21% LA, lost 4.2 lb.Olive pomace oil: ~12% LA, lost 5 lb
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@AlpacaAurelius Apples and pears are the worst fruits. Both are bred for sweetness, not nutrient density.
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The majority of us are sick. Let that sink in. While chronic diseases were once rare, today, 60% of adults have one or more chronic illness such as heart disease or diabetes. These diseases are responsible for 7 in 10 deaths, are primarily caused by diet, and are preventable.
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Some people blame red meat or saturated fat for weight gain. But meat consumption has increased only nominally since the 1960s, and the increase has been entirely from poultry. We are also not eating any more saturated fat, cholesterol, or sodium than in previous decades.
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@esaagar The Native American Pima people in the US have a 67% obesity rate and have been eating a more Western diet of seed oils, flour, and sugar. But Pima men in Mexico with identical genetics who still live off of their traditional diet have 10x less obesity.
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The single biggest change in our diets since the onset of widespread chronic health issues and deforestation is the fast-rising consumption of industrial “vegetable” oils, aka seed oils. More of these oils are consumed globally than all beef, chicken, cheese and shrimp combined.
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Citations and more study details available at and Cultured Oil is a 1:1 replacement for seed oils with a 485ºF smoke point & neutral taste, produced by fermenting sugarcane. Let me know if you try it:
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Meanwhile, our planet loses 60 football fields of forested land every minute, primarily for food production, leading to record rates of biodiversity loss & carbon emissions. To sum it up, we’re destroying our environment to grow foods that kill us. That doesn’t make any sense.
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Read on to learn how we’re using the ancient art of fermentation to create a new category of healthy oils and fats: Interested in getting involved? We’re looking for the cream of the crop to join our team:
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They're also a leading driver of mass deforestation. More land is cleared to make room for oil crops than for all fruits, vegetables, legumes (pulses), nuts, roots and tubers combined. Deforestation is the 2nd largest contributor to climate change, after fossil fuel combustion.
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At @ZeroAcreFarms, we are on a mission to remove destructive vegetable oils from the food system. And we’re not going to stop until restaurant deep fryers, home pantries, and packaged foods around the world are finally free of these harmful oils and fats.
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Since my original post (, there's been backlash that "No one drinks that much oat milk". But many people do, especially when they perceive a food to be healthy. A splash of oat milk isn't that big of a deal; an entire carton a day is.
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@esaagar Genetics do play a role in obesity, but only to the extent that obesogenic foods are present in the diet. Without those foods, and with physical activity, even populations predisposed to obesity remain thin and fit. For example 👇.
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If we succeed in giving the world an oil change, we think the result will be nothing short of the reversal of chronic disease rates, as well as a massive slowing of climate change and the restoration of millions of acres of natural ecosystems.
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In 1981, rapeseed oil meant for industrial use was fraudulently sold as olive oil, killing 300 people and leaving 20,000 with chronic conditions like limb deformation, lung failure, and disability. The victims are now protesting and threatening suicide.
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In theory, the fix is simple: stop eating vegetable oils. In practice, it’s difficult because they're in everything, from packaged food to fast food to fine dining. They're in chips, crackers, dressings, baby formulas, french fries, chicken thighs, sauces, sprays, spreads. .
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And there's no end in sight. Vegetable oils are still the fastest growing sub-sector of global agriculture. We want to change that.
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@TuckerGoodrich @puddleg Your question got me curious and I couldn't help but do an analysis. Unsurprisingly, the trend in calories from high-PUFA vegetable oils in Sweden follows a similar curve:
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New study finds 89% of avocado oils are rancid or adulterated ☹️🥑. This is in a follow up to a 2020 study, which found that 82% of avocado oil samples were rancid or mixed with other oils, with an average omega-6 content of 20% – similar to canola oil.
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The most effective way to minimize HNE in your body may be to avoid HNE in the first place by minimizing the primary source of omega-6 fat in our diets: linoleic acid found in liquid seed oils. Here are the oils lowest and highest in omega-6 linoleic acid:
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@thesamparr To a 5 year old:.When you eat seed oils, it's like eating tiny bombs that explode inside your body, breaking lots of things you need to be healthy. Studies by scientists show that eating a lot of seed oils is as bad as smoking cigarettes. To an adult:
Seed oils appear to cause obesity due to their high content of a specific type of fat called linoleic acid, a type of omega-6 polyunsaturated fat (PUFA). Here are some of the randomized controlled trials in humans that link seed oils & linoleic acid to disease and weight gain 👇.
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A thread on the environmental impact of food crops and vegetable oils. We dedicate a lot of land to crops. About 12% of all habitable land on Earth, over 1.5 billion hectares, is dedicated to food crops for human consumption, up from 300 million hectares a few hundred years ago.
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9c) For a country that’s experiencing a human health crisis, and a world that’s experiencing a crisis in ocean health and marine pollution, oysters are one of the best investments you can make. Read more:
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Diet low in omega-6, high in omega-3 fats has 'remarkable' effects on reducing headaches, study finds
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In this "Olive Oil & Balsamic" vinaigrette, olive oil is the 7th ingredient after water, soybean oil, balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, agave, salt. Yes, there is more salt than olive oil. That's like advertising a 99% beef / 1% pea protein patty as a "Pea Protein Burger".
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Very excited to soon announce our first product and what we’ve been cooking up at @ZeroAcreFarms. See you July 26th!.
We're cooking up something huge – something that’s going to change the future of fat forever. If you care about health, sustainability, and cooking delicious food, then you’re in the right place. Get ready for a future free from destructive vegetable oils: starting July 26th.
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See the studies and read more about the link between seed oils, HNE, and obesity in our white paper: And learn more the health benefits of Cultured Oil from @ZeroAcreFarms (my company), which is made by fermenting sugarcane, at
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In 2001, Austrian researchers treated single-cell yeasts with small amounts of HNE. While the untreated cells didn't accumulate fat, the HNE-treated cells had significant fat accumulation within 2 hrs. After 11 days, the HNE-treated cells had either accumulated fat or had died.
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2) Unlike most farmed food, oysters actually have a BENEFICIAL impact on the environment. Eating oysters promotes sustainable oyster farming, which captures CO2 and helps clean our oceans. Here are two tanks filled with the same water, but one has oysters in it:
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The researchers concluded that the accumulation of body fat "can be reversed not only by withdrawal of food, but also by withdrawal of HNE, even in the continuing presence of excess food.". The same study showed that a reduction of HNE led to lean worms. The proposed mechanism:
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3) Gram for gram, oysters are literally the most micronutrient-dense food on the planet, second only to liver.
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In a randomized trial in rabbits, we see the effect of frying seed oils. Compared to those eating unheated oil, the group eating single-heated oil gained 6% more weight, and the group eating repeatedly heated oil gained 45% more weight, even though they ate no more calories.
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Replacing seed oils with healthier, more environmentally friendly options in restaurant fryers could have a significant positive impact on both human and planetary health. This partnership is just one small step forward, but hopefully an important one toward a healthier world.
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In 2008, researchers at the University of Arkansas scaled the experiment to C. elegans, a microscopic roundworm with about a thousand cells. Similar to the single-celled yeast, the roundworms treated with HNE accumulated intracellular fat. The more HNE, the fatter the worms.
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On any given day, ~40% of American adults eat foods, often fried, from fast food and fast casual restaurants. As the 2nd ingredient in most fried foods and the 3rd most consumed food in the world, seed oils (vegetable oils) now account for more than 20% of American calories.
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It's strange to see so many food companies still using "zero cholesterol" as a selling point. Harvard Health and the AHA have stated that dietary cholesterol does not matter for most people and even US dietary guidelines have removed cholesterol limits. Old myths die hard.
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Most people who say they like chocolate actually just like chocolate-flavored sugar.
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There is mostly consensus among nutrition researchers that fried foods are linked to obesity, inflammation, and disease. However, it may not be the caloric density, saturated fat, or sodium in fried foods that make them so harmful, but rather the high content of omega-6 and HNE.
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@TuckerGoodrich @hubermanlab @BioLayne @NIH @DellMedSchool I would also add Ameer Taha's lab to the list at UC Davis:
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4) Oysters are high in omega-3s and low in mercury, a common concern in seafood. Among all seafood, only scallops, shrimp, and clams have a lower mercury content than oysters.
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One tablespoon of olive oil has about as much saturated fat as two pieces of pan-fried bacon 🤔.
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The heavy consumption of seed oils has been linked to health and environmental issues, but most restaurants, in need of a neutral oil that pours easily and has a decent smoke point for frying, haven't had a good alternative until Zero Acre.
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. don’t eat high sugar or fatty diet and weight 7st 7lb so I’m bewildered by the results. I have since seen your oatly article. Do you think drinking oatly barista could have caused my bad results? Thank you for any advice you can offer. I am so worried".
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Additional research has demonstrated that exercise reduces HNE, suggesting that exercise may not cause fat loss simply because of the extra calories burned but because it also lowers HNE levels. Separate research has shown that ketogenic diets also reduce HNE levels.
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Higher levels of HNE didn't affect the amount of food the obese mice ate or how much they moved. But, it did change how many calories they were able to burn during their lives. When the obese mice were given a detoxifier to reduce HNE levels, diet-induced obesity was reversed.
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@CarnivoreMD Because of the omega-6 (linoleic acid) in canola oil, many canola oils do indeed contain trans fats, up to 2%+ trans fats (. & most other seed oils (soybean, grape seed, rice bran, corn, cottonseed) contain even more omega-6 linoleic acid than canola oil.
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@touchdownHtown @bruno_crocco @AveMerci @SeedOilDsrspctr That's based on EVOO where only some of the oil is extracted from the olive. One olive has 1.82 grams of fat according to the #'s below (Healthline). 5 tablespoons of olive oil = 70 grams of fat. Therefore, you'd have to eat ~38 olives to get the amount of fat in 5 tablespoons.
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After 10 mins of cooking, Cultured Oil was the only oil studied to show no measurable generation of HNE or other PUFA-derived toxic aldehydes. After 90 mins, Cultured Oil produced 6-11x less than avocado and olive oil and about 20x less than seed oils like soybean/sunflower oil.
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In Europe, those who eat the most fried food actually consume fewer total calories than those who consume the least fried food, but are 26% more likely to be obese. Possibly because fried foods are cooked in repeatedly heated high omega-6 seed oils, which are highest in HNE.
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In 2019, the US spent ~$4T on healthcare and ~$2T on food. Chronic disease, primarily caused by unhealthy diet, accounts for 90% of healthcare costs, 70% of deaths, and $1T in lost productivity. A healthier food system would be the best investment our country has ever made.
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In 2020, researchers showed that mice with elevated levels of HNE gained more body weight, even if they ate the same number of calories and exhibited the same amount of movement as mice without elevated.HNE levels. "ALDH2*2" below describes the mice with elevated.HNE levels:
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In a study on the production of HNE and other PUFA-derived aldehydes among common cooking oils,.@ZeroAcreFarms comes out on top. Cultured Oil results in the lowest levels of HNE when heated, while corn, rapeseed (canola), sunflower, and soybean oil result in the highest levels.
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I haven't met Sir Richard directly but hope to someday. His family and team are incredibly supportive of our mission at @ZeroAcreFarms.
How @ZeroAcreFarms - a company backed by members of the Branson family - is seeking to bring an end to destructive vegetable oils: @HollyBranson @SamBranson @RichardBranson.
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RT @jdrive: "#Entrepreneurs: The only people who work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 hour weeks.".
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While HNE is produced in our bodies from the breakdown of omega-6 fats, it is also produced in high omega-6 cooking oils and fried foods before entering our body, as the result of high heat that accelerates the breakdown of omega-6 into HNE. .
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The World Health Organization just published new data on healthy life expectancies for 2019 and the U.S. is the only developed country in the world that has experienced a decrease in healthy life expectancy in any period since 2010.
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Here's Part 3 in my series of posts investigating how vegetable oil impacts our health: Why is vegetable oil unhealthy? We look to common sense, historical precedent, omega-6, oxidation, and the effects of heating vegetable oil.
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@davedoestrading Similar to ghee (clarified butter), @ZeroAcreFarms cultured oil, and tallow (around 2% linoleic acid).
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Now to humans:. In a study comparing HNE levels in obese diabetics, non-obese diabetics, and endurance-trained athletes, the obese individuals had significantly elevated levels of HNE compared to lean individuals, and the endurance-trained athletes had the lowest levels of HNE:
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Great conversation with @dhrupurohit all about seed oils. The history, the recent studies, the different sides of the argument, and the alternatives
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@bedrockusofa @NeilFlochMD Eating whole foods is generally not an issue since you would have to eat A LOT of whole foods to get the amount of oil and omega-6 that's in seed oils (image below from
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Unfortunately, adulteration in the edible oil industry is still widespread, usually affecting high-end oils such as avocado oil and sesame oil.
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Global food prices hit 10-year high, led by "soaring cost of cereals and vegetable oils," namely palm, soy, sunflower & rapeseed oils. Vegetable oils–devoid of nutrition and ubiquitous in ultraprocessed foods–are becoming less affordable. Dang, too bad.
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9b) A half dozen oysters would cost less than five bucks, and provide more nutrition for that price than nearly any other food. Plus, those six oysters would have filtered and cleaned over 50,000 gallons of sea water during their 1–2 years of life. .
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In a 2015 HNE study featured by the American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS), University of Minnesota researchers sum up their findings, showing that french fries (FF) containing higher levels of linoleic acid (the primary omega-6 fat in our diets) also contain higher levels of HNE:
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"No matter how you look at it, rapeseed oil is a vegetable oil—which arguably, by definition, creates some conflict over how healthy Oatly really is."
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The term "uncanny valley" refers to the unsettling feeling of encountering robots that appear almost, but not quite, human. Our food system is also in an uncanny valley. We produce food-like substances that are almost, but not quite, real food.
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7) Oysters can be eaten fresh or make for a convenient canned (smoked) snack. I’m partial to the @CPseafood smoked oysters with red chili pepper.
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EU may ban imports of agricultural products linked to deforestation, including soy and palm oil. Huge step forward.
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If you think you're having a bad day, it can't be as bad as the poor ops/engineer at HBO who accidentally just sent an internal test email to the entire @hbomax external mailing list.
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@richcollins @ZeroAcreFarms More details coming in the weeks and months ahead. We're focused on oils and fats that have a healthy fat profile (especially low omega-6 linoleic acid), low environmental footprint, and stand the best chance of displacing seed oils at scale, in restaurants and packaged foods.
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Belgium bans biofuels made from palm and soybean oil in an effort to combat deforestation. Next step: ban foods made with soybean oil to combat chronic disease.
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Stop the madness. - Two-thirds of the world and 36% of the U.S. doesn't tolerate dairy. - Vegetable oils have increased from less than 1% to more than 20% of our calories in the last century. Yet the dietary guidelines still say that 80% of Americans need more of both.
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