On your Radar: Seed Oils
Plus my Clean Out The Fridge Meal 💫
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I’ve been spending a lot of time in commercial kitchens lately for my job. As part of selling Fable, I often meet with chefs or foodservice providers and prepare samples of our meaty mushrooms using their kitchens.
I don’t want to say I was naive about how commercial kitchens functioned, but in my mind they were just like my home kitchen but with bigger equipment. As I’ve spent more time in foodservice, it’s clear that is quite far from reality. Eggs, for example, might come in a carton already scrambled, milk might be powdered and the oil is often bulk, low quality vegetable oil. To be clear, this is not meant to place any blame. With the cost of everything going up and up, ingredient costs must stay as low as possible.
Over the past few months I’ve noticed the debate around these oils, often referred to as “seed oils” start to bubble up online with a growing number of Tiktok influencers citing research finding them inflammatory or toxic. What I once thought might be an issue relegated to fringe health nuts, I now am also paying attention.
The oils used at most restaurants and foodservice providers are known as seed oils, which are canola (rapeseed), corn, cottonseed, grapeseed, rice bran, safflower, soy, and sunflower oils. These oils can be found in everything from fryer oil to your favorite salad dressing. When burned, these oils can release linoleic acid which can cause inflammation and an increase of free radicals.
Because we rarely see into the kitchens of most places we eat food outside of our homes, the average person has little idea what kind of oil is being used to cook their food. What we do know is that the prevalence of seed oils in our diets has shot up the past 100 years. To dig deeper into the health impacts I suggest you refer to your preferred health sources or a deeper dive here.
Aside from how they impact our heath, seed oils go through a refining process, including bleaching and deodorizing, that helps improve the taste and color of the oils and extends their shelf life.
Although there are debates on some of the health concerns, the outstanding issue is when you heat up seed oils time and again. According to Guy Crosby, PhD, an adjunct associate professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, when you bring unsaturated fats repeatedly to high temperatures, you’ll get a buildup of damaging chemicals. The main problem is restaurant and factory deep-fryers that only get changed once or twice a week, “cooking with seed oils at home isn’t an issue,” he says.
What I want to put on your radar is a company called Zero Acre Farms, which is a sugarcane-based cultured oil made via fermentation and does not turn toxic when heated at high cooking temperatures.
Shack Shake made quite the splash after they introduced it as a test and burger chain Hopdaddy have transitioned to using it as well.
So if you have never thought about the dangers of seed oils before, now is a good time to start paying attention because we do have an emerging solution to unhealthy cheap oils so keep your eye out for Zero Acre and more companies in the space.
Gems of the Week ✨
Producer Rick Rubin came out with a book on creativity that my sibling and I are reading - The Creative Act: A Way of Being
I just got a used version of Mollie Katzen’s, Enchanted Broccoli Forest Cookbook - I love everything about it especially her drawings
Crispy chickpeas - baked in the oven with seasoning they are my current favorite snack
Just found
online and her instagram and newsletter have EXCELLENT recipesZone of Interest - Best movie I’ve seen in a long time
We went roller skating in Long Island and it was so fun!
Clean Out the Fridge Meal ✨
Nothing makes me crazier than produce rotting in my fridge. Every time I opened the fridge this past week I spotted a bunch of turnips and parsnips that I had ignored far too long. Yesterday I decided to try a sheet pan meal to use it all up and I am now going to make it a weekend ritual.
If you slice up all your hardier vegetables you can cook them at the same time tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper at 350 for 45 min to an hour.
I had to use up parsnips, carrots, radicchio, turnips and I added a red onion. To turn into a complete meal I made quinoa and a sauce from wilted kale. Topped with feta and kraut.
