As more patrons of food service establishments embrace the Make America Healthy Again movement today, more restaurants also appear to be answering the call by promising seed oil-free dining experiences.
But while plenty of restaurants can claim to be free of seed oil, there hasn’t really been a way to reassure customers officially of that – until now.
The Seed Oil Free Alliance was founded in 2023 “to raise awareness, improve transparency and educate consumers about the prevalence of seed oils in our food supply,” according to the group’s website.
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Co-founders Corey Nelson and Jonathan Rubin discovered that “there was no certification to verify that foods are actually seed oil-free,” Nelson told Fox News Digital.
They soon “realized there was an opportunity here to not only help consumers, but also to help companies – because it’s more expensive to eliminate seed oils from most foods.”
The Seed Oil Free Alliance, based in Florida, is an independent certifying organization with a coalition of public health and nutrition experts as advisors.
“Any legitimate certification body does have certifying standards,” Nelson said.
Those range from pre-certification testing to “post-certification surveillance where we can actually test foods once they’re on the shelf,” he said, “to ensure that companies are doing what they say that they’re doing and that consumers can trust the seal.”
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All foods and restaurants with the seal undergo laboratory testing to ensure they are free from all seed oils, including soybean, corn and canola oil.
Olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, butter and other refined animal fats are permitted.
Sometimes, seed oils are detected within ingredients that restaurant owners didn’t anticipate.
“We give them the choice,” Nelson told Fox News Digital.
“You know, you can walk away, no harm done, if it’s not the right time to make the switch. Often, companies do switch, so then we have this opportunity to help them meet our standards.”
‘Not just the oil we were using’
Erin Leeds, who owns the Garden Butcher in Boca Raton, Florida, said her restaurant was on track last year to be the first restaurant to receive the certification – that is, until the avocado oil she was using didn’t pass the rigorous lab testing.
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“The tests indicated that [it was] not just the oil we were using, but many other avocado oils we were willing to switch to — all were adulterated in some way [and] suspected to have traces of sunflower oil,” Leeds told Fox News Digital.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
After over six months of trying to find a cost-effective solution, Leeds made progress with the help of Nelson and Rubin. She turned to algae oil from a company in California.
“We bring in two pallets of algae oil every couple of months and use a storage facility to hold them,” Leeds said. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
On the other side of the country, Jennifer Peters had been going through the same testing at her Colorado restaurant.
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After doing so, Just BE Kitchen became the first restaurant in America to receive the certification. (See the video at the top of this article.)
Peters said she was in the process of opening a second location when Nelson and Rubin gave her the news.
“They actually called and said, ‘Oh, you know what? There was oil adulteration in another company’s oil and yours has passed. So you’re the first restaurant that’s seed oil-free certified,'” Peters told Fox News Digital.
“That was pretty cool,” she added.
The Seed Oil Free Alliance doesn’t just certify restaurants, though.
Products like TruBar – a snack food made with all-natural ingredients like cassava flour and brown rice protein – have also received the certification.
“I knew that I wanted to make that change.”
“I knew I wanted to change,” Florida resident Erica Groussman, who owns TruBar, told Fox News Digital.
“We only had a very small amount in our bars, but I knew that I wanted to make that change.”
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While businesses must pay a fee to become certified, Nelson said the price points “work really well for emerging brands like in the packaged foods industry or mom-and-pop-size restaurants.”
“I think from the consumer perspective, restaurants and packaged foods are equally important if you’re looking to avoid seed oils,” Nelson said.
“But I think from the owner perspective, it’s just much harder to get all the seed oils out of a restaurant as opposed to a packaged food.”
The goal, ultimately, Nelson said, “is to advocate and advance the availability of seed oil-free food options.”
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