Consumers have grown increasingly wary of products made with seed oils, driven in large part by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement.
Individuals associated with the movement have given the most common seed oils a nickname, the “hateful eight,” which include corn, canola, cottonseed, grapeseed, soy, sunflower, safflower, and rice bran oils.
As a result, seed-oil-free certifications and innovations are on the rise.
Seed Oil Free Certified
In 2023, Jonathan Rubin founded the Seed Oil Free Alliance, a third-party certifying body that licenses the Seed Oil Free Certified seal to brands that comply with its standards.
To verify compliance, products must undergo:
- Comprehensive ingredient/sub-ingredient reviews
- Documentation audits
- Independent laboratory testing of added oils and fats
- Ongoing surveillance
“The conversation around seed oils has evolved beyond a niche nutrition debate. Consumers are increasingly asking questions about food processing, ingredient quality, adulteration, and how products are made,” Rubin told FI.
According to SPINS, Seed Oil Free Certified products now represent about $410 million in retail sales, and 50-plus brands have achieved Seed Oil Free Certified status so far.
Cedar’s Foods is one such brand, recently announcing that its Reserve Hommus Line had achieved the certification.
“When we launched our Reserve line in 2025, the goal was to create a more elevated Mediterranean snacking experience using premium ingredients, including olive and avocado oils, alongside bold, restaurant-inspired flavors,” said Aimee Tsakirellis, EVP of marketing.
“We’re always paying attention to evolving consumer preferences, and ingredient transparency continues to be an important conversation in the food space,” Tsakirellis told FI.
Rubin says shoppers are increasingly seeking out third-party verifications rather than taking front-of-package claims at face value.
“The future of this category will likely be driven less by online debates and more by trust, transparency, and credible third-party verification,” he explained, while acknowledging that there is ongoing scientific debate about the health effects of seed oils.
I interviewed a couple of nutrition experts to get their take.
Are Seed Oils Bad for You?
Valentina Steverlynck, a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Yébo Nutrition, says she’s noticed an uptick in confusion and fear around seed oils in the last year, adding that she can’t recall a single client asking about seed oils prior to the rise of MAHA.
“Clients are telling me that they’ve heard seed oils ‘cause inflammation’ and are overall not health-promoting,” Steverlynck told FI.
However, she said she’s seen an “abundance of research” on the health benefits of replacing saturated fats like butter, tallow, and coconut oil with seed oils.
“Especially for my patients who either have or are at risk for heart disease, replacing any butter, tallow, or coconut oil with seed oils has dramatically improved their blood lipid profiles,” she explained.
In March 2025, I actually wrote an article about a study suggesting that individuals who consistently replace butter and other animal-based fats with plant-based oils (primarily safflower, soybean, corn, canola, and olive) may have lower rates of total mortality and mortality from cancer and cardiovascular disease.
The researchers found that individuals with the highest butter intake had a 15% higher total mortality risk than those with the lowest, and the highest intake of plant-based oils was correlated with a 16% lower total mortality rate.
Steverlynck also noted that seed oils are rich in heart-healthy unsaturated fats, whereas butter, tallow, and coconut oil are high in saturated fats, which she says can increase heart disease risk for multiple reasons.
“Saturated fats can lead to plaque formation in the arteries because they impair the liver’s ability to clear LDL cholesterol from the blood. Plaque formation in the arteries also increases blood pressure and inflammation,” she told FI.
Another reason seed oils have come under fire is because they’re often used in ultra-processed foods (UPFs), which Sydney Lappe, a registered dietitian at Top Nutrition Coaching, believes are the real threat.
“Most people aren’t consuming seed oils or beef tallow in isolation – they’re eating them in foods like fries, chips, fast food, and other highly processed products. In most cases, overall eating habits matter more for health than whether a food was cooked in seed oil or beef tallow,” Lappe told FI.
Trevor Connor, M.S., CEO at The Paleo Diet, echoed this sentiment.
“A potato chip is still a potato chip, and cake is still cake. They don’t suddenly become healthy just because the seed oil it was fried in was replaced with coconut oil, or the flour was made with almonds. I worry that people are going to see ‘seed-oil-free’ on products and think that makes them healthy when they are still a processed unhealthy food,” Connor told FI.
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