America may be poised for a nutrition policy reset, one that starts to reverse the epidemic of chronic disease afflicting a majority of Americans. With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the incoming administration has an opportunity to scrutinize a once-rare but now pervasive ingredient in our diet: seed oils.

Over the last 125 years, our consumption of these oils, extracted from soybeans, peanuts, sunflowers, safflower, and other seeds and beans, has multiplied more than any other food source. Between 1909 and 1999, Americans’ intake of soybean oil alone increased more than a thousand-fold. Today, linoleic acid, the main fatty acid in seed oils, is responsible for up to 8-10% of our total caloric intake, up from near zero just over a century ago.