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Comment by alkonaut | Hacker News Reader

Where is this panic? In the US? I don’t hear anything about it (in Europe).

Social media.

Europe is not immune.

I almost never hear about it in person. It’s always on some social media site. Often the sites where people think they’re not using normal social media, like Twitter or Reddit.

Many restaurants around me have started advertising that they cook everything with beef tallow, as opposed to seed oil.

Ironically, most of them also happen to serve deep fried stuffs which are unhealthy no matter what oil you fry it with.

This could just be a function of your algorithm silo on social media.

Have you tried searching Youtube/Twitter in a euro language to check?

If you haven't already, you will. Expect supermarkets to start offering and marketing animal-based fats more frequently.

I was aware of the panic, but what I learned from this article is that food-makers are actually responding to it by changing their offerings.

Local stores I go to had animal based fats the whole time. They are fairly cheap and easy to buy in big buckets. Sunflower oil is somewhat cheaper.

But, I cant think of a single time I would had issue to buy animal fat (accross 4 different countries).

On social media.

I'm not sure of the genesis of it, but it got traction with "health-fluencers" (not to be confused with health experts) and has spread like wildfire despite no real evidence backing it up. Its just a circle of parrots repeating whatever is trending so they can get on the algo train.

Now it's starting to show up in brands and businesses because the mindless algo herd gravitates towards it.

Apparently at heart it has to do with solvents being used to extract the oil, but those solvents are trivially boiled out after processing.

It’s largely an American thing, but I’ve occasionally heard it from conspiracy-theory-prone (antivax etc) types in Ireland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_oil_misinformation

Apparently (per the Wiki) the fad grew after 2020, when Joe Rogan (an American podcaster) interviewed Paul Saladino (an American "carnivore diet" promoter and current food supplement business owner).

The Wiki claims that this fad diet / conspiracy theory is popular on the "political right". Actually, my guess is that a better description would be that this is particularly popular among certain social media "wellness influencers" and "alternative health" promoters. Especially wellness influencers who have been pushing anti-veganism / meat-only / high-protein fad diets in the past.

There seems to be overlap between this movement and anti-vaccination movement promoters (Joseph Mercola, a key figure in the later movement, is now also promoting anti-seed oil activism).

I don't see a whole lot of influencers promoting this yet who are not American. I also don't see this fad outside social media much personally, despite being an American. The primary thing I can think of is that the fast food chain Steak N Shake is heavily touting its "beef tallow fries" on their billboards now.

Yes. RFK Jr. was corruptly placed in charge of America's healthcare by Trump in exchange for dropping out as a presidential candidate.

He is a conspiracist with no medical credeentials, and he believes, without evidence, that seed oils are response for most of the ills of mankind, Tylenol causes autism, SSRI's should not be prescribed, etc. None of his beliefs are mainstream or evidence backed, but he now has a huge megaphone.

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