Doctor Reveals the ‘Most Dangerous Food for Your Liver’ — And It's Not The One You'd Expect

For so many years in the last three decades, fingers have pointed at processed and sugary foods, pillorying them as criminals that ruin humans’ health. All those chips and chocolates, those luscious jumbo burgers and whipped cream desserts- for years, nutritionists and health experts have assaulted their reputation for mangling with the functioning of the body’s chemical factory, a.k.a. liver. But little attention has been paid to a common ingredient that could be the real villain: seed oils. In his latest video on YouTube, the 60-year-old doctor Eric Berg (@drberg) from Alexandria, explained why seed oils could be the “most dangerous food for the liver.”

“The most dangerous food for the liver is not sugar, it's not processed meat and it's not saturated fat,” said the chiropractor who specializes in “Healthy Ketosis and Intermittent Fasting,” according to his YouTube bio. The most dangerous food, he revealed, is “unsaturated fats as in seed oils.” Seed oils, doctor Berg explained, “take one to two years to leave the body. The more you cook with it, the more oxidized it becomes, the more it creates byproducts that are very toxic to your tissues.”

Elaborating on why he claimed vegetable oils as dangerous, he said these oils get “stuck in the liver. It's highly processed. It has residues of something called ‘hexane’, which is in gasoline. It's rancid, oxidized, and acts like something that can rust out your organs. The last thing you want to do is rust out your liver.” Listing the dangers in detail, he described that seed oils “create inflammation which turns into scar tissue or fibrosis. Plus, seed oils get “lodged into our tissues, not just in the liver, but all over the nervous system in our brains.”

When a person pours spoonfuls of oil into their pan for cooking a dish, the “delicate, fragile” oils can destroy the unsaturated fat when exposed to oxygen, heat, and light. Calling out the process manufacturers use to produce seed oils, the doctor said they use seeds like soybeans and corn and heat them at extreme temperatures, and add chemicals to them to add flavors. Additionally, these bottles are exposed to oxygen and not refrigerated, which only adds to the toxicity of the oil. “Stop consuming these seed oils. Replace corn oil, soy oil, cottonseed oil, and canola oil with olive oil, butter, tallow, and coconut oil,” he advised the viewers.

Given the popularity of seed oils these days in the American diet, Dr. Berg’s claims might sound untrue at first. However, when one delves deep into the history and origin of these oils, the claims seem valid enough. An article by The Atlantic explains that seed oils were first introduced to the American diet during the 1990s. But they were never intended to be used as cooking oils until two businessmen met each other in a twist of fate. Both of them had lost their businesses, one being a soapmaker and the other, a candlemaker. In quite a coincidence, they ended up marrying two sisters. They merged their businesses into a soap and candle manufacturing company named Procter & Gamble.

They tweaked this soapmaking cottonseed oil as a kitchen oil and employed clever marketing strategies that convinced homemakers to swap butter with their oil. Doughnuts were fried in this oil and offered free to the women. Women who purchased their new bottles of oil received free cookbooks, which ironically contained recipes made from the same oil – soups, sauces, curries, and sandwiches. However, it seems these seed-based oils should be best limited to the soapmaking business.

Cleveland Clinic explains that seed oils like canola, corn, cottonseed, grapeseed, soybean, sunflower, rice bran, and peanut are referred to as the “hateful eight” due to their toxicity. The “high levels of omega-6 fats” in these oils catalyze inflammation and pave to organ damage. Besides, as these seeds are bleached, deodorized, pressed, smashed, and blasted with chemicals, the nutrients packed inside are stripped away. By the time the oil gets into the bottles, it is as good as “toxic waste.” Knowing about the potential dangers of seed oils has made people gag. “Seed oils, the culprit should be banned,” wrote @consorciasantiago4009 in a comment. @ninamares1309 said, “The worst part is there are people who not only use seed oils, but they reuse it over and over again to cook and fry with!”

You can follow doctor Eric Berg (@drberg) on YouTube for health and diet tips.