oxidation. When oxidative stress overwhelms our natural
antioxidant systems, brain fog, memory loss, DNA damage,
and the onset or worsening symptoms of Alzheimer’s,
Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis (MS), Lewy body dementia,
and autism ensue.
Intact (let’s call them fresh) polyunsaturated fats are
vulnerable to oxidation, but when they appear in their
natural state, contained in whole foods, they are bundled
with fat-guarding antioxidants like vitamin E. This is not the
case when polyunsaturated fats appear in oils that have
undergone heat and chemical processing. When these oils
are extracted and used to create packaged foods, they
represent one of the major toxins in our food supply.^5
Sometimes these oils are where you’d expect to find
them, like in commercial salad dressings and margarines.
Other times, they are sneakier. Grain-based desserts like
cookies and cakes, granola bars, potato chips, pizza, pasta
dishes, bread, and even ice cream are among the top sources
of oxidized oils in the diet.^6 They coat and comprise the
“varnish” on breakfast cereals. “Roasted” nuts are covered
with them (unless they explicitly say they are dry-roasted).
And these oils are regularly served to us in restaurants,
where processing, poor storage methods (being left out in a
warm kitchen environment for months, for example), and
heating and reheating make these highly susceptible fats go
bad. Most restaurants now fry and sauté foods in them,
reusing the oil over and over, further damaging them, and
damaging you in the process. French fries? Shrimp
tempura? Those delicious beer-battered chicken fingers? All
are vehicles for these biochemically mutated oils, and for