Like a host of online influencers, the man likely to be the US’s next health secretary has denounced the vegetable oils used in countless foods. The science is not on their side

Seed oils are in many foods. They are usually cheap and easy to cook with, and their inoffensive taste means they can be used in a huge variety of things. Go on any social media platform, though, and you will find self-appointed health influencers blaming them for everything from inflammation to the obesity epidemic. Politicians do it too: the man Donald Trump wants for his health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has claimed that Americans are being “unknowingly poisoned” by them. But is any of this true, and should it change how you buy or cook your food?

To be clear, seed oils are oils extracted from – well, seeds. In the UK, the most common are rapeseed (known in the US as canola oil) and sunflower (both often called vegetable oil), though you will also find soybean, corn, grapeseed, rice bran and safflower in countless products. .