What Really Happens When You Avoid Seed Oils?

Like so many other subject in the health and nutrition space, the debate around seed oils is packed with noise and misinformation. Some say these industrial oils are toxic and are responsible for nearly every modern disease, while others defend them as harmless or even healthy. The conversation usually devolves into loud and tribal with either side rarely offering a practical answer that helps normal people.

The issue often left out of the conversation isn’t the oil, or even how it’s made. It’s what happens when you stop eating ultra-processed foods loaded with it. Removing seed oils forces you to stop eating the processed foods they’re hidden in.

This one simple change doesn’t just adjust your fat intake, it changes how you decide what to eat and alters your entire food environment.

The result is fewer calories consumed, better nutrient density, more stable energy, and a diet that’s harder to screw up^(1,2,3). 

In this article, we’re not going to focus on the potential toxicity of the manufacturing process, but rather the impact of removing seed oils from your diet in a practical real-world sense, and how that one change can impact obesity rates.

So, What Exactly Are Seed Oils?

Seed oils include soybean, canola (aka rapeseed), corn, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, and grapeseed oil. These oils are extracted through industrial processes involving high heat and solvents like hexane, then refined, bleached, and deodorized to create a shelf-stable, flavorless fat.

Is the manufacturing process using chemicals that are unhealthy? Probably, but nutritionally these oils contain nine calories per gram just like butter, lard, olive oil, and every other fat. 

So there's nothing inherently magical or evil in the calorie content. 

The issue is how pervasive these oils are in packaged foods you’ll find in the grocery store, and how they trick your brain.

Why Do Seed Oils Dominate Packaged Food?

Seed oils are cheap, stable, and easy to use in mass production. That makes them the go-to fat source in most ultra-processed foods. They show up in nearly every convenience item: chips, crackers, frozen meals, microwaveable entrees, processed sauces, salad dressings, trail mix, cereals, fast food, and even "health" snacks. You’ll rarely see someone pouring corn oil into their smoothie, but you’ll see millions consuming it daily inside high-calorie, low-satiety junk food. 

And that’s the problem.

Ultra-Processed Food and the Modern Diet

More than half of the calories consumed in the United States come from ultra-processed foods⁽¹⁾. Almost all of those use seed oils. So when someone decides to cut out seed oils, they automatically eliminate a massive chunk of the food that’s easy to overeat.

That one filter removes most processed snacks, frozen dinners, fried foods, and low-quality takeout, and forces a shift toward eating whole foods and fewer temptations.

Does Science Support the Hype?

Studies have shown that replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats from seed oils can improve LDL cholesterol levels and slightly reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease^{(2, 3)}. However, these outcomes are modest and rely on controlled comparisons. In real-world settings, the issue is not the biochemical effect of the oil. It’s that these oils are built into food systems that promote overeating⁽⁴⁾, so removing them is where the real impact lies.

The Behavioral Impact of Avoiding Seed Oils

People who cut out seed oils typically stop eating the foods that contain them. That means less fast food, fewer snacks, less boxed food, and more cooking. The result is a passive drop in calorie intake without tracking. Hunger cues become more stable. Blood sugar fluctuations decrease and satiety improves. Many report better digestion and reduced cravings, not because seed oils were poisoning them, but because they stopped eating the highly engineered foods driving metabolic dysfunction^(4,5).

Inflammation and Seed Oils

Despite common claims online, most human trials do not show seed oils to be inflammatory when consumed in normal amounts. A large systematic review found no significant effect on inflammation markers like CRP and IL-6 when people consumed higher levels of linoleic acid, the primary omega-6 fat in seed oils⁽⁵⁾. The idea that seed oils are a smoking gun is not supported by human data.

So the question isn’t are seed oils inflammatory, but “What happens to your calorie intake and diet quality when you stop eating the foods that contain them?” 

What Actually Changes When You Cut Seed Oils?

Removing seed oils from your diet forces a total food quality upgrade. You stop buying junk food because most of it is off-limits.

You start reading labels, planning meals, and preparing food at home. You eat fewer calories without trying. You experience more consistent energy and hunger. This isn’t a theory. It’s what happens when you cut the source of excess, not just the symptom. The results speak for themselves: less decision fatigue, fewer binges, better portion control, and even a smaller grocery bill.

Here's How to Do It In Practice

To remove seed oils, start by scanning all of your food labels for canola, soybean, corn, cottonseed, rapeseed, sunflower, safflower, or "vegetable oil." When you start reading labels you’ll quickly realize how pervasive this problem is, because it’s in nearly everything. It’s actually quite shocking.

Here are a few more easy tips to follow:

Focus your food shopping on the perimeter of the grocery store.

• Cook with butter, olive oil, avocado oil, ghee, or coconut oil.
  
• Avoid store-bought dressings, sauces, and snacks unless you’ve checked the ingredients.
• Be skeptical of protein bars and wraps marketed as healthy, because most of them still use industrial oils.
• When eating out, assume everything is cooked with seed oils unless it's explicitly stated on the menu that it's not. Now restaurants are using 'we don't use seed oils' as a marketing tactic, so if they don't use them you will know. If it's not stated on the menu ask your server what they use to cook.

When you follow these steps consistently, your diet shifts toward real food and away from industrial calories and the weight stays off.

But this is just the beginning. 

Because once you’ve made that shift, the next step is simple: don’t replace those snacks with something else. Don’t look for the “healthier” chip or the “cleaner” bar. Just remove the behavior entirely. And to reinforce that, start walking.

Here’s why that combo works better than anything most people try.

Let’s say you were eating two common snacks per day, something like a bag of chips and a granola bar, or a muffin and a protein bar. That alone adds anywhere from 500 to 1,000 extra calories to your day without filling you up. These aren’t rare scenarios. This is what many people are doing every day without thinking. Cut those out, and you instantly create a significant calorie deficit without logging a single thing.

Now add 10,000 steps per day, which burns another 300 to 500 calories, depending on your body size and pace.

Together, these two habits can reduce your daily calorie balance by 800 to 1,500 calories.

That’s 5,600 to over 10,000 calories per week, which is enough to lose 1.6 to 3 pounds of body fat every single week, without a calorie tracker, without giving up real meals, and without doing a single burpee. Add in weight training a few days a week and your body composition changes even faster.

Why does it work so fast?

One pound of body fat contains roughly 3,500 calories. When you compound reduced caloric intake with increased caloric output your body catches up fast.

The best part is you're not starving yourself, and you're not white-knuckling through a 1,200-calorie crash diet. You're just eliminating the easiest calories to cut: the ones you didn’t need in the first place.

This is how fat loss becomes frictionless. 

You change your inputs. You increase your output. You stop letting industrial food make decisions for you.

Is it going to be easy? Maybe, maybe not. At first your brain will default to ‘easy mode’. But do it enough days in a row and soon you won’t think twice about it.

Here's The Final Takeaway

The current research suggests seed oils themselves are not uniquely toxic, but they are a core ingredient in the processed food system that keeps people overweight, undernourished, and metabolically unstable.

Removing seed oils eliminates most of the foods that drive overconsumption and underperformance. So if the chemicals they are produced with in the future are found to be toxic, you will have already eliminated them from your life while everyone else is scrambling to catch up.

If you make this one simple change, dozens of bad choices disappear from your routine. 

It’s the kind of dietary filter that actually works long-term, because overeating is a much bigger problem, and one that is often caused by the same products that contain these seed oils. Eliminate the seed oils, and you eliminate the downstream effects it causes now, and in the future.

If overeating is an issue and you need to keep hunger at bay, consider adding SHREDDED-AF to your daily routine. 

SHREDDED-AF is an advanced multistage thermogenic that focuses on boosting metabolism, suppressing cravings, and providing all-day energy and mental clarity without the crash.

Packed with potent ingredients that stimulate brown adipose tissue, increase metabolic rate, and enhance fat oxidation, SHREDDED-AF is your ultimate weapon for getting lean and staying in peak condition!

References:

(1) Monteiro CA et al. (2019). Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them. Public Health Nutrition, 22(5):936-941.

(2) Mozaffarian D et al. (2010). Effects on coronary heart disease of increasing polyunsaturated fat in place of saturated fat: a meta-analysis. PLoS Med, 7(3):e1000252.

(3) Hooper L et al. (2015). Reduction in saturated fat intake for cardiovascular disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev, (6):CD011737.

(4) Hall KD et al. (2019). Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: An inpatient randomized trial. Cell Metabolism, 30(1):67-77.e3. DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008

(5) Johnson GH, Fritsche K. (2012). Effect of dietary linoleic acid on markers of inflammation: a systematic review. J Acad Nutr Diet, 112(7):1029-1041. DOI: 10.1016/j.jand.2012.03.029