> I don’t think we’ve fully grasped the long term health consequences of introducing new seed oils into the human diet

We are beginning to understand the effects of seed oils (marketing term: vegetable oils) and it is not looking good. Excerpt from _Don't Eat The Oil! The Health Consequences of Consuming "Vegetable" Oils_ by Thomas L. Copmann:

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This book is a compilation of two and a half years of research based entirely on peer-reviewed publications. While I wasn't planning on publishing a book, the further I looked into the interrelationship of a number of major diseases, there slowly appeared to be a common denominator - the levels of polyunsaturated oils in our fatty tissues from consuming vegetable oils. Finally, the weight of evidence compelled me to write this book.

Polyunsaturated oils are a fairly new addition to the modern diet. Prior to their introduction at the turn of the century, cooking fats were mostly beef tallow and butter. Corn oil was introduced in 1911, followed by cottonseed, soybean, and rapeseed (Canola) oil labeled as "vegetable" oils. The fact is however, these oils have nothing in common with vegetables, but are the product of solvent extraction of oils from seeds.

The problem with these oils is their molecular structure. They are rich in polyunsaturated fats which means they have multiple double bonds between carbon atoms. Oxygen reacts with the double bonds in a process called _lipid peroxidation_. The end result is the formation of highly reactive free radicals which interact with cellular membranes, nuclear DNA, and deplete cells of their antioxidant defenses.

As you read the following chapters, the important thing to remember is exposing polyunsaturated fats to oxygen leads to free radical formation, while saturated fat cannot undergo this reaction because of their lack of double bonds. During the process of oil extraction, the oil is subject to high temperatures which accelerate the peroxidation reaction.

Polyunsaturated fats break down as their double bonds are exposed to oxygen. And heating accelerated this process. Therefore, lipid peroxidation is the degradation process involving the double bond(s) found in polyunsaturated fatty acids, causing a deterioration of food quality (odor, flavor, color, texture, toxicity). This is collectively known as turning "rancid". According to one analysis, a total of 130 volatile compounds were isolated from a piece of fried chicken alone!

... In summary, polyunsaturated fats are highly unstable and are readily oxidized to form toxic compounds that are implicated in most of our modern diseases (cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity, immunological disorders, neurological disease processes, dysbiosis, lipofuscin, and premature aging). We will explore each of these in detail looking at mechanistic as well as epidemiological evidence.

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Long story short, it took nearly a century to assess the consequences of the oil of cottonseed, declaring "New Cottonseed Is Safe for People to Eat" is irresponsibly premature. Only time will tell.

I keep coming back to Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book _Antifragile_, where he explains how he doesn't eat any fruit that doesn't have an ancient Greek/Hebrew name, and doesn't drink any liquid that hasn't existed for a thousand years. Will this new "safe" cottonseed survive the test of time, or be looked upon hundreds of years from now as another catastrophic dietary mistake?