Vegetable Cooking Oils: The Cancer Connection
They’re kitchen cupboard staples. But should they be?
When vegetable cooking oils first entered the culinary landscape in the early twentieth century, they quickly became the superfood of their time. Sold as healthy alternatives to saturated fat, these new oils were at the centre of the brave new world of dietary expertise.
It took a while for the first cracks to appear, but by then vegetable cooking oils had been firmly established as the cornerstone of a healthy diet. No amount of scientific inquiry was going to shift that perception in a hurry.
But the closer researchers looked, the worse the view became. There seemed to be an association with a number of serious chronic diseases, such as heart disease, irritable bowel disorder, arthritis. And cancer.
Today, those cancers most associated with high consumption of vegetable cooking oils are those of the breast, prostate, and colon.
How can something so seemingly innocuous, so deeply insinuated within our food culture, be in any way involved in the development of such serious disease?
The crops most commonly grown to produce these oils are corn, soy, and sunflower. The oils extracted from these crops are used liberally in processed foods and ready meals…
