I was at the grocery store not long ago, thrilled to see that my favorite pumpkin-spice muffins were back on the shelf. (I will unapologetically stan pumpkin spice season every single year.) Then I overheard a mom tell her daughter to put the muffins back, because she'd spotted seed oils on the ingredient label.
That kind of comment hurts my heart, truly. Not because I have any judgment toward this mom - quite the opposite. I'm sure she was simply trying to do what she thought was best for her child, and I can absolutely understand how she got there. When you're constantly told that certain ingredients are "toxic" and that you need to "protect" your family from them, it's easy to get swept up in it.
Comments like this also reinforce the idea that there are "good" and "bad" foods. There aren't. Food has no morality (here's a post where I go deeper on this, while debunking "clean eating"). In this case, the fears around seed oils aren't even supported by the science.
This little grocery store incident made me think: maybe it's finally time we talk about seed oils.
Let the debunking begin.
What Are Seed Oils?
Seed oils are simply cooking oils pressed from plant seeds. These include: canola, corn, cottonseed, grapeseed, peanut, rice bran, safflower, sesame, soybean, and sunflower. In the wellness space, they're often referred to as the "Hateful Eight" (all of the above minus peanut and sesame oil). The demonization is relentless, truly, and I have zero tolerance for turning perfectly ordinary foods into something to fear.
You'll often see seed oils labeled as "vegetable oils." They're rich in unsaturated fats (the kind considered heart-healthy) and low in saturated fat. Two of them, canola and soybean oil, are among the most heavily studied oils in the world.
Where Did the Fear Around Seed Oils Come From?
Most of the worry centers on omega-6 fats, especially one called linoleic acid. The theory goes like this: omega-6 fats get turned into inflammation-causing compounds in the body, so eating more of them must fuel inflammation and disease.
From there, the inflammation narrative bleeds into seed oils supposedly being bad for cardiovascular health, blood sugar, and liver health. It goes on and on. There are also fears perpetuated about how seed oils are processed.
Here's the interesting (and important) part: when researchers tested this theory in humans, things got a lot less dramatic. A 2026 review on seed oils helps separate fact from fiction (fear).
What the Science Actually Shows
Here's the reassuring part: the evidence on seed oils is not thin. That review examined more than 500 studies on seed oils and linoleic acid, including inflammation, heart disease, cholesterol, blood sugar, and even how these oils are processed.
And when you look at the human research, the scary story the wellness space loves to promote just doesn't hold up. It turns out:
They don't increase inflammation. This is the big one. Controlled trials measuring actual inflammation markers in the blood (like CRP and interleukins) have consistently found that eating more linoleic acid doesn’t raise them. In fact, some studies show seed oils lower inflammation, similar to olive oil.
They're good for your heart. People who eat more omega-6 fats tend to have a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, and death from any cause. Seed oils lower LDL cholesterol, the type of cholesterol associated with cardiovascular risk. Swapping saturated fat (butter, lard) for these oils is linked to less heart disease.
They help with blood sugar, too. Higher intake of these fats is associated with better blood sugar control, improved insulin sensitivity, and a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
The chemistry myth doesn't pan out. The claim that omega-6 fats flood your body with inflammatory compounds ignores a key fact: linoleic acid is only very inefficiently converted into those compounds. Your body simply doesn't do this the way the scare stories suggest.
The processing concerns don't hold up, either. The review found no evidence that commercially produced seed oils are inherently harmful because of how they're manufactured. That includes concerns about residual hexane (a solvent sometimes used during oil extraction) left over from the extraction process. It turns out you'd need to consume 22 cups of oil daily to exceed a conservative exposure limit.
And while repeatedly overheating any cooking oil to extreme temperatures can cause degradation, that's not uniquely a seed-oil problem, and it's not what most of us are doing when we're making dinner at home.
What About the Omega-6-to-Omega-3 "Ratio"?
You may have heard that modern diets have thrown this ratio "dangerously" out of balance. Omega-3s are another type of polyunsaturated fat that play important roles in heart, brain, and overall health.
While it's true our diets contain more omega-6 today than in the past, there's no solid evidence that this shift has caused more heart disease or cancer. In fact, that same review pushes back on that framing, noting that the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio isn't a very reliable measure of diet quality.
My opinion? Perhaps the better move isn't to fear omega-6s. It's to consider leaning more into getting more omega-3s (fish, walnuts, flax meal, chia seeds, and canola oil).
The Bottom Line on Seed Oils
When it comes to seed oils, remember that most of the noise online is exactly that: noise. It isn't rooted in what hundreds of scientific studies have actually shown and validated.
If you love olive oil and want to use that as your primary cooking oil, fantastic - love that for you! And canola, soybean, sunflower, avocado, and other unsaturated plant oils are also great choices. Use the oil you like, the one that fits your cooking, your budget, and your preferences.
Here's something I find particularly ironic: some of the same corners of the wellness world telling you to fear seed oils (again, despite hundreds of research studies validating them as safe) are enthusiastically promoting "wellness peptides," which have no existing long-term safety data in humans and plenty of unanswered questions. (Here's my take on wellness peptides, if you're curious.) Make it make sense, please.
Nutrition shouldn't be this complicated (in theory), and food certainly doesn't need to be scary. We can care about our health without scrutinizing every ingredient on the label. That includes pumpkin-spice muffins. Obviously.