August 1, 2025

Ultra-Processed Foods and Seed Oils

Have you ever looked for diet and nutrition information online because you wanted to improve your health, but ultimately ended up more overwhelmed than you were before your research? There is a surplus of information available online, both good and bad. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and not know the best decisions. Discussing your diet and general nutrition with a health professional, like a naturopathic doctor or a nutritionist, is always a good idea. But we can discuss a few topics today that can help you make more informed nutritional choices. One of the best things we can do to support our dietary habits is to pay attention to our food labels and understand what our food is made of. Let’s dive further into two hot topics – Ultra-Processed Foods and Seed Oils. 

 

What is an Ultra-Processed Food?

Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs) are industrial formulations. These concoctions are made from substances derived from foods with little, if any, whole food ingredients. These foods also typically contain added artificial flavors, colors, and other additives. In summary, Ultra-Processed Foods are not foods and serve little to no nutritional purpose for our bodies. These foods are often packed with artificial sweeteners, dyes, added artificial flavors, inflammatory oils, and many other unnecessary additives that are not beneficial to our health and wellness. These ingredients are ultimately causing more harm than good. 

A small study published in 2019 discovered that diets lower in Ultra-Processed Foods decrease energy intake and therefore result in weight loss compared to a diet high in Ultra-Processed Foods, which results in higher energy intake and weight gain. 

Common examples of ultra-processed foods include potato chips, soda and energy drinks, flavored candy bars, sweetened breakfast cereals, protein or granola bars with added sugars, and many other options. If you are reading this and realizing that most of your diet comes from Ultra-Processed Foods, you may wonder how you can make changes and move towards eating more nutrient-dense foods. It can be very overwhelming trying to make sustainable dietary changes, so I always recommend starting low and slow with a few changes over time. 

Easy Changes to Make Over Time
  1. Instead of having a processed cereal for breakfast, consider focusing on nutrient-dense options that include protein, healthy fats, and antioxidants. Nutrient-dense oatmeal can be a great way to start the day: organic oats, walnuts, ground flax seeds, chia seeds, maple syrup, coconut milk, and organic mixed berries. 
  2. Instead of picking up a soda for that mid-day crash, consider switching to filtered water infused with fruits, cucumber, and fresh mint. 
  3. Consider eating minimally processed dark chocolate instead of a highly processed and artificially flavored candy bar. 

 

What are seed oils?

The term “seed oils” refers to oils extracted from the seeds of different plants, including Sesame, Flax, Grape, Safflower, Sunflower, Soybean, and Rapeseed (Canola). The culinary world often utilizes these seeds for their neutral flavor, high smoke point, and low cost. 

We frequently associate Ultra-Processed Foods with being inflammatory. This is because these foods typically use seed oils due to their low cost. Seed oils can also often withstand high temperatures. Because of this, they’re frequently utilized in restaurant deep fryers where the oil is heated repeatedly to high temperatures. Restaurant fryers must use oils that can withstand being heated repeatedly at high temperatures. They’ll often turn to seed oils for this since they can withstand exceptionally high temperatures.

Many seed oils are high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which are unstable and easily react with other molecules in the environment. When these PUFAs are exposed to repetitive high temperatures, this can cause the seed oils to oxidize, or go bad, quickly, and can ultimately lead to free radical formation and damage within the body. Free radicals are molecules that are unstable and, if left unchecked, can contribute to the damage of cells and tissues within the body, and have been associated with increased cardiovascular diseases, inflammatory diseases, and cancers. 

Prioritizing oils and healthy fats that contain monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) helps to lower the risk of oxidation, as the MUFA molecules are more stable and less reactive to outside influences. Coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, and avocado oil are all options that contain MUFAs and are better overall choices. 

 

We Are Here to Help! 

If you feel overwhelmed by the amount of information available online regarding health and nutrition, schedule an appointment with one of our naturopathic doctors today for an in-depth consultation to learn more about what diet and nutrition advice may be best for your individual needs. There is no ‘one size fits all’ diet. Your food choices and habits should be carefully considered based on your individual needs and concerns. While we can all benefit from less exposure to Ultra-Processed Foods, let’s work together to see what other supportive dietary habits we can implement to help improve our overall health! 

 

References:
  1. Lobo V, Patil A, Phatak A, Chandra N. Free radicals, antioxidants and functional foods: Impact on human health. Pharmacogn Rev. 2010;4(8):118-126. doi:10.4103/0973-7847.70902 
  2. Monteiro CA, Cannon G, Levy RB, et al. Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them. Public Health Nutr. 2019;22(5):936-941. doi:10.1017/S1368980018003762
  3. Liu J, Steele EM, Li Y, et al. Consumption of Ultraprocessed Foods and Diet Quality Among U.S. Children and Adults. Am J Prev Med. 2022;62(2):252-264. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2021.08.014
  4. Hall KD, Ayuketah A, Brychta R, Cai H, Cassimatis T, Chen KY, Chung ST, Costa E, Courville A, Darcey V, Fletcher LA, Forde CG, Gharib AM, Guo J, Howard R, Joseph PV, McGehee S, Ouwerkerk R, Raisinger K, Rozga I, Stagliano M, Walter M, Walter PJ, Yang S, Zhou M. Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake. Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 2;30(1):67-77.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008. Epub 2019 May 16. Erratum in: Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 2;30(1):226. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.020. Erratum in: Cell Metab. 2020 Oct 6;32(4):690. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2020.08.014. PMID: 31105044; PMCID: PMC7946062.