Thread by @ck_eternity_

This is one quite a few people seem to believe, so let me clarify a few things:

1. Seed oils do not turn into plastic no matter how much heat they're exposed to, a process called polymerization occurs, but in this case it's unrelated to plastics

https://twitter.com/BadMedicalTakes/status/1481783621543514117

From a chemistry standpoint some of the most well-known polymers are plastic compounds, but by definition a polymer is just a long chain of repeating molecular structures

DNA is a polymer, as are many proteins oh, seed oils forming polymers doesn't mean they are suddenly plastic

2. On a similar note, hydrogenation is not as bad as it sounds either, it's simply the process of adding hydrogen to convert a fat from being polyunsaturated to being saturated

Hydrogenation is often demonized as well, and there's a grain of truth here, though it isn't harmful

What's actually harmful is partial hydrogenation, which results in the creation of cardiotoxic trans fats

This was a major issue in food production that was only realized fairly recently, and was responsible for the high trans fat content of processed foods containing these oils

The good news is though that as of January 1st, 2021, partially hydrogenated oils as food ingredients were banned in the US, so unless some companies are still breaking the law they are absent from the market

I'm not sure about their legal status in other countries

Interestingly many of the handful of human studies actually showing an increase in heart disease from seed oil consumption are confounded by using partially hydrogenated oils and not controlling for the effect of trans fats

The Boston coronary study is a great example of this

All in all margarine is still trash, and you'd be better off consuming cold-pressed oils or whole foods in general, but that said it's nowhere near as bad as stuff like this makes it out to be, at least with the current legal restrictions