Few ingredients start more fights than refined seed oils: canola, soybean, sunflower, corn, safflower. One side calls them toxic. The other calls the panic pseudoscience. The truth is quieter than both.
What they are: oils extracted from seeds at industrial scale, usually with heat and solvents, then refined, bleached, and deodorized. The process is intense, but the resulting oil is not poison — major cardiology bodies still rate unsaturated plant oils as better for your heart than butter or lard, and controlled trials back that up [1].
So why does rootd let you avoid them? Two honest reasons. First, some people simply prefer less industrially processed food, and that's a legitimate preference, not a science test. Second — and this is the useful part — seed oils are a reliable MARKER. They're cheap and shelf-stable, which is exactly why they show up in nearly every ultra-processed product. A long ingredient list with refined oils usually signals a formulation built for cost and shelf life, not nourishment [2].
The omega-6 concern (that these oils drive inflammation) is the internet's favorite argument, but human trials haven't shown that swapping in seed oils raises inflammatory markers; if anything, the evidence leans the other way [3]. Frying and reusing any oil at high heat, though, is genuinely worth avoiding.
Bottom line: a drizzle of canola in your stir-fry is not sabotaging you. A diet where most calories arrive pre-fried in refined oil probably is — but mostly because of everything that travels with it.