Ep. 0: What VICE Left Out: Bitcoin and Seed Oils

Tucker Goodrich: Debugging Life

Back in February, Dr. K, the Seed Oil Disrespecter on Twitter, was contacted by Audrey Carleton, a reporter for the news website VICE. She had some questions about why the seed oil topic had become a 'big thing' in the bitcoin world. He mentioned me as being knowledgeable about the seed oil and health topic, and suggested I reach out to her. I did, and we had a nice chat, although it probably went on longer than she was expecting. I've often heard it's wise to record conversations with journalists, and we did so via Zoom, to which she agreed. We had a pleasant enough conversation, and she listened to me at length (~48 minutes). I followed up with a bunch of references to some of the scientific evidence we had discussed (see that link for the file I sent her, references below), and offered to send more. She didn't get back to me for any follow-up discussion, and then finally the article came out: "The Newest Bitcoin Diet Trend Is Hating ‘Seed Oils’" I'll not editorialize about the many problems with that article, but the major one is they never addressed the research from institutions like the NIH and the AHA showing that there are credible reasons to think that the benefits of seed oils are oversold, and that there are real reasons to fear harmful effects. "Misinformation is a two-edged sword in the seed oil debate, however. Figureheads like Shanahan, after all, believe that most mainstream dietary guidance around fat consumption is built on lies, the kind that have quietly fueled America’s major health epidemics for decades. Like Bitcoin itself, the anti-seed oil stance reflects a skepticism of authority, one that is often not unfounded in the least but which can quickly snowball, echoed and amplified online." It's rather routine at this time for journalists to spread misinformation while pretending to be preventing it, and this is a perfect example of that. So I am presenting here the full discussion I had with VICE, so you can be the judge yourself of the value of what they elected to leave out while claiming that being concerned about seed oils is "misinformation". Journalists have editors, and many publications have clear—often unadmitted—editorial biases. I have no particular reason to think that Audrey wrote the bias into this story, so I won't blame her for it. I appreciate the time that she took to speak to me. I do blame VICE, however, which I think is fair. They printed a biased, misleading article, while ignoring that there are valid scientific reasons to think seed oils are problematic. I'm glad they left my name out of it.