Join the family
Follow us on Instagram for parenting tips, real-life moments, little wins, and inspiration.
Worried about seed oils in baby food? We separate online claims from scientific evidence and explain their role in a safe, balanced diet.
You may be reading this article because you’ve seen a lot of negativity about seed oils online and you’re worried about how this could impact your baby (or your family as a whole). In recent years, there has been a growing shift towards demonising seed oils across social media, and media headlines often suggest that they are harmful and should be avoided completely.
It’s understandable that parents want reassurance about the ingredients used in everyday foods, especially baby foods, to ensure they are safe, appropriate and nutritionally sound.
But what does the science say? Read on to understand what seed oils are, why they are used, and what the evidence says about their role in the diet and our health.
Seed oils are vegetable oils extracted from the seeds of plants. Common examples include rapeseed, (known as canola oil in the USA), sunflower, safflower, corn and soybean.
We aren’t going to get overly complex in this article, but it is important to understand that all oils; whether they come from seeds, fruits or animals are made up of fatty acids. It’s the variation in chemical structure of these fatty acids which greatly affects the health effects of the oils.
As well as the fatty acid profile, seed oils also contain beneficial compounds called phytonutrients, such as phytosterols and polyphenols. These are non-essential nutrients so you won’t find them on the nutrition label, but they may contribute to health, particularly with their anti-inflammatory effects.
Importantly, seed oils are not a single category from a nutritional perspective. Each oil has a distinct balance of fatty acids and naturally occurring compounds, which means their health effects can differ significantly.
Seed oils have been used in cooking and food production for decades, not because they are cheap or inferior, but because of their nutritional and practical properties.
From a nutritional point of view, seed oils:
From a practical point of view, many seed oils also have:
When seed oils are criticised, particularly online, they are often blamed for issues such as inflammation, chronic disease and poor health. While these claims can sound convincing (and honestly, a bit scary!), they often oversimplify complex nutrition science and fail to consider the wider context of what people are eating. Let’s look at some common myths and debunk them!
It is often argued that as seed oil consumption has increased, that chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancers have increased at the same rate. You may even see infographics or graphs to really hammer this point; which can look like a compelling argument. However, just because two things are happening together, it doesn’t mean that one has caused the other. Or in scientific terms, correlation does not mean causation.
Whilst it is true that chronic diseases have increased, it is far more likely that the overall changes in our diet and lifestyle are driving this rise. There has been a very well recognised, and much debated, increase in the consumption of foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar. These foods often also contain less fibre, less vitamins and minerals, alongside more salt, sugar and saturated fat. This point is often omitted from this argument to direct the blame at seed oils.
This myth originates from previous research which suggested that increased intake of Omega-6 fats would block the body from using Omega-3 fats due to shared metabolic pathways. It was therefore advised it was important to get the ratio correct. However, evidence from recent human studies indicates that if intake of Omega-3 fats are adequate, the amount of Omega-6 consumed does not matter. Current advice is therefore that we should focus on ensuring sufficient intake of Omega-3 from rich sources such as oily fish, flaxseeds, chia seeds and oils such as rapeseed instead of limiting Omega-6 fats.
Another hotly debated area is that seed oils cause inflammation. This is a bit of an extension of our second myth because this idea originates from the fact that Omega-6 fatty acids are involved in the inflammation process, a tightly regulated response to injury, infection and general tissue repair after exercise.
Inflammation from the consumption of Omega-6 fats is not harmful and large human studies do not show that commonly used seed oils increase markers of inflammation when consumed as part of a normal diet. In fact, diets higher in unsaturated fats, such as seed oils, and lower in saturated fats, such as animal fats, are consistently associated with better cardiovascular outcomes.
There are two ways of extracting oils from seeds. Cold pressing involves literally pressing the seeds to remove the oil, which many believe to be the healthier way to extract. However, this is not the most efficient as not all oil is removed and is therefore less favourable for manufacturers.
The second is through a process called refining, which is how HiPP Organic extract the seed oils used within their baby foods. This process means that accompanying substances and potential allergens are removed from the oil. Refining was previously thought to be toxic, but current research indicates that it’s a safe way to extract oils.
When assessing the quality of the diet, it isn’t helpful to focus on single ingredients in isolation. Our overall health is shaped by dietary patterns and longer term intakes rather than individual food items.
It would be very unusual for anyone to be eating predominantly seed oils, and the wider context of their diet would need to be considered to understand the overall quality.
That said, if we look at the evidence from human trials there are some clear messages about seed oil intakes:
Rapeseed oil (known as canola oil in the United States) is one of the most widely used vegetable oils in the UK. It has a mild, neutral flavour and a relatively high smoke point, which makes it suitable for a wide range of foods without affecting taste.
Compared with olive oil, rapeseed oil naturally contains higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids which play an important part of healthy development in babies and children; particularly for normal visual development of infants up to 12 months of age.
Fats are an important part of a baby and child’s diet as they provide energy for growth, help with the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, and supply essential fatty acids that cannot be made in the body.
For this reason, vegetable oils such as rapeseed are commonly included in baby foods in the UK. Their use is based on nutritional considerations and regulatory guidance, not on trends or convenience.
Foods and drinks specifically created for infants and young children are highly regulated and are required to adhere to strict safety and nutritional standards.
Vegetable oils used within baby foods must be refined to remove accompanying substances and possible allergens from the oil. Under Organic regulations, as is the case for HiPP Organic, chemical refining with Hexane is not permitted.
As we said at the start; it is normal for parents to question what they feed their baby, in fact, if you weren’t doing so, we would think it was strange! When there is so much noise online about the negative effects of consuming seed oils it is understandable to worry. However, when we look at the scientific evidence, the idea that all seed oils are harmful is not supported.
As with all aspects of nutrition, context and dietary patterns matter far more than fear of individual ingredients.
