(RNS) — Millions of Americans made resolutions to start the New Year, hoping to exercise, eat right and otherwise try to be healthier in 2025. For an increasing number of Americans, this includes avoiding seed oils — like corn and canola oil, often used in highly processed foodstuffs and in fast-food restaurants.
Touted for years as healthy alternatives to using butter, lard or beef tallow, these vegetable oils have come under fire recently from critics such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine advocate who hopes to “Make America Healthy Again” if confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services in a new Trump administration. Kennedy and other critics blame what they call the Hateful Eight — canola, corn, soybean, sunflower, cottonseed, safflower, grapeseed and rice bran oils — for causing inflammation, obesity, cancer and other health woes, calling them one of the leading threats to public health in America.
Food scientists disagree, saying that eating too much fried or processed food is the issue – not the oils used.
But the fight over seeds oils hasn’t been solely about healthy eating. Instead, the conflict has become part of a larger American quest for purity — both in body and in soul — with healthy eating a sign of spiritual purity and unhealthy eating a sin, or even worse, a risk to national or racial purity.
Andrew Torba in a 2018 interview. (Video screen grab)
For some religious folks, avoiding such oils has become a matter of faith. Or in e …