Why Do People Who Stop Eating Seed Oils No Longer Burn as Easily in the Sun?

By Brian Cates

Our intrepid forebears don’t seem to have been burning nearly as easily in the Sun as modern Americans often do. Why is that?

Were they just tougher than us?

Was their skin different than ours? If so, why?

Or has the Sun changed? Is there something in the sunlight now that wasn’t there for 100 years? There are various speculations as to why so many people seem to get sunburned so easily.

The fact of the matter is, the sun isn’t burning any hotter, and it’s not casting off any more glare than it did before.

No, the Sun hasn’t changed.

WE’VE changed.

American’s skin health has changed.

Our diet has changed. And not for the better.

Over the last 100 years or so, seed oils and a plethora of chemicals were added to the US food supply, and ingesting these new things had a direct impact on Americans’ overall health as well as a direct impact on their skin health.

The modern diet in America and many developed countries are tied to a food supply stuffed to the gills with these seed oils, chemical preservatives, and additives, as well as dyes and many kinds of synthetic or genetically modified ingredients.

As far back as 1918, medical and food scientists had already amassed a large preponderance of the evidence that seed oils were toxic in developing rats, cows, horses, and birds, and yet there was no serious attempt to curtail or reduce the influx of various seed oils into the standard American diet.

It was noted that the animals fed seed oils had fur problems developing. For instance, rats fed butter fat grew to full size and had nice shiny coats of fur…but the rats fed the seed oil were not only undersized and unhealthy, their fur didn’t grow out right, and they had bare patches.

It certainly does appear at this point that eating a diet full of seed oils and chemicals in various forms has a negative effect on human skin.

This article published on the ‘Dr. Cate’ site seems to provide a real explanation as to why seed oils harm human skin:

It’s also easy to find articles on the internet claiming the idea that seed oils are toxic, are bad for your skin or contribute to sunburn are bunk, such as these two, one from Business Insider and one from Harvard School of Public Health.

So, when there are conflicting claims, it’s best to rely on personal experience.

I’ve seen a lot of anecdotal reports of people saying once they stopped regularly consuming seed oils and the chemicals found in processed foods, they noticed they were able to stay out in the sun for far longer than without burning.

So recently decided to put this claim to the test myself.

In the past, I’ve been sunburned many times. And it didn’t take me very long to start burning – usually inside of an hour.

I have a good friend named Beth who makes a yearly trip from Indiana during the winter months to stay in sunny Florida, usually in the Lakeland area. During her time in Florida, she loves to spend most of her time in or near various swimming pools or beaches.

Just two years ago, when I was pushing 360 pounds, I took a couple of trips to the pool with Beth, and each time, after about 30 minutes of being in the sun, I would have to retreat to the shade because I’d already started burning.

I burned so badly during one of these pool trips that for a week and a half, I couldn’t even take a warm shower; the water aggravated my red, sensitive skin. My face was especially burned.

My entire adult life has been like that. 30 minutes in the sun and my nose and cheeks will begin to turn red, and if I stay in the sunlight any longer than that, sunburn will result.

Now, as many of you know, I stopped eating anything that had seed oils in it back in August of last year when I changed my diet and went to a One Meal A Day intermittent fasting schedule where the meals are from the Carnivore Diet.

So, ten days ago, I made it a point to go to my local pool and stay out in the sun for over an hour each time. I wasn’t able to go to the pool every day, but I did log over eight hours in the sun over those ten days.

I wasn’t going early in the morning or late in the afternoon, either. These trips were during the heat of the day, between noon and 3 pm.

By the 3rd trip to the pool, and having been out in the sun for 4+ hours at that point in just four days’ time, I was already reporting on my X account that I was no longer burning by the 30-minute mark. In fact, I wasn’t burning at the 60-minute mark, either.

After two more trips, at the end of over 5+ hours of sun exposure over six days, I reported that I still wasn’t burning.

And today made day ten, where I estimate just over 8 hours of sun exposure, with no sunburn in sight. I took this picture at the pool at 2:30 pm, after having been outside in the hottest part of the day for an hour and a half.

So there are ‘experts’ out there insisting seed oils aren’t toxic, aren’t bad for your skin, and don’t play any role in causing or making sunburn worse.

The man with an argument loses to the man with experience EVERY TIME.

And I’m now a man with experience.

Now, I’m not saying I **can’t** burn in the sun. What I’m saying is I used to start burning well inside of an hour of sun exposure and now I don’t.

Maybe I’d start to burn at the two-hour mark? I don’t know since I don’t have the time to sit by the pool for two hours.

One thing I **DO** know is removing seed oils and chemicals from my diet seems to have made my skin much more resilient and resistant to sunburn.

I see no real downside to people trying this. What would the harm be in removing seed oils and processed food from your diet for a few months and then testing your sunburn tolerance?