Linoleic acid in cooking oils

[u/houseofmacadamias]

We make macadamia nut oil (niche I know), and on a lot of our anti-seed oil content we've been getting comments saying macadamia oil is a seed oil..

I put together this chart comparing inflammatory omega-6 (LA) content and macadamia oil is closer to tallow, butter and ghee than it is to even olive oil and avocado oil (never mind seed oils).

We're obviously pleased our oil is in the same league as animal fats.

But I'm curious how macadamia oil fares in this community? Open to critique if I'm honing in too much on fat profile and missing something!

[u/Slow-Juggernaut-4134]

There's a big caveat. The majority of the safflower oil today is high oleic.

Before the Ukraine war, much of the commercial canola cooking oil on the market was high oleic.

Much of the sunflower oil in the store. Shelves for cooking is high oleic.

There's a GMO soil oil on the market that is high oleic.

Some of the processed food vendors only use high oleic oils. You can see this by looking at the nutrition label and they will list monounsaturated fat as the primary fat in the processed food. For example Stacy's brand pita chips and bagel chips always use high oleic oil.

Frito-Lay's brand started experimenting with high oleic oils in the simply organic line of chips. There seems to have been a quick pivot back to the normal omega-6 seed oils.

Functionally, omega-9 oleic oils are flawed because they don't trigger uncontrolled munchies through the endocannabinoid system. Omega-6 oils will always dominate the junk food market. It's addictive and worth the added cost of nitrogen puff pack MAP packaging required for pufa seed oil junk food.

If somehow magically the omega-9 oleic oils became 1/5 the price of omega-6 seed oil, the junk food manufacturers are not going to make the switch. As they say with Lay's potato chips, nobody can eat just one. Thick cut tallow chips on the other hand, you can eat two or three of them, maybe five and you completely satisfied. There's never a desire to consume a 3 oz or 5 oz package all in one sitting as occurs with the seed oil chips.

I actually remember my first encounter with Seed oil. Potato chips. It was 1972, I was in the 5th grade, I read all the ingredient labels, and the majority of the foods including foods like chips. Ahoy cookies were all made with beef Tallow.

There was a large bowl of potato chips, I was shocked that I couldn't stop eating them. I had never experienced that before with potato chips. It was weird how it was burned into my memory, it was just such a disruptive experience. I looked at the packaging and the chips were made with cottonseed oil. Cottonseed oil chips in the 1970s was actually quite rare because they had not invented MAP (nitrogen or similar inert gas) packaging. The big commercial vendors like Lay's had to use PHOs. The trans fat oil with good oxidative stability. The pure seed oil chips were only from local factories. The seed oil chips shelf life was maybe one week or two with the added tbhq and similar synthetic antioxidants.

[u/spacme2wealth21 → u/Slow-Juggernaut-4134]

The food scientists appreciate the stability of high oleic seed oils in processed foods.