Fake Avocado Oil Scandal, The Brands Sneaking Seed Oils, Quantum Consciousness & AI Making You Dumber | Thomas DeLauer

WATCH THE FULL-LENGTH EPISODE HERE ON YOUTUBE! 

We're on the road right now with The Art of Being Well, and Thomas DeLauer was generous enough to hand us his own studio to record in - which felt fitting, because Thomas and I have been in this wellness space for roughly the same stretch of years, watching it change in real time. It had been a few years since he was last on the show, and reconnecting with him reminded me why I've always respected how he thinks.

We started where a lot of conversations start these days: AI. Thomas made a point I haven't stopped thinking about - that AI is built to validate you. It will always find a way to agree with you, to tell you what you want to hear, and he connected that pull toward chatbot validation to something much older and sadder: an unmet need, often rooted in childhood, to be seen and approved of. That hit harder than I expected. He also pointed to a troubling MIT study linking chatbot use for writing to a real decline in brain engagement - his rule of thumb is to use AI to challenge your own thinking, never to replace it or validate it.

We also went existential for a few minutes - what happens when AI meets basic needs for everyone, and whether society is actually capable of the kind of collective surrender that a true AI "utopia" would require. Thomas's line that stuck with me: to fully embrace this technology, every one of us has to become okay with the idea that it could end us. That's a heavy thing to sit with, but I think it's an honest one.

Then we pivoted into a story that's been blowing up the health space: the UC Davis study on avocado oil. Thomas broke down, in the clearest way I've heard anyone explain it, how researchers used sterols - essentially a plant oil's DNA fingerprint - to prove that a huge share of "100% avocado oil" products on shelves are cut with seed oils, in some cases almost entirely. Brands like Chosen Foods, Siete, Primal Kitchen, and Boulder Canyon all came back flagged; LesserEvil came out comparatively clean. We talked through why this is most likely a supply-chain problem rather than brands intentionally lying to their customers, and why the backlash aimed at UC Davis itself has mostly been noise from companies with something to lose.

From there we got into the real argument against seed oils - not just that they lower cholesterol, but that they oxidize and incorporate into your cell membranes, driving lipid peroxidation that's linked to metabolic dysfunction. We also revisited the Vital Farms egg controversy from earlier this year: the honest answer is that the linoleic acid difference is close to negligible, and the real issue was charging a premium without being straight about it.

The part of this conversation I want people to sit with most, though, is the quantum biology section. Thomas walked me through Gerald Pollack's exclusion-zone water research and the discovery that protons may be quantum tunneling through ATP synthase in our mitochondria rather than simply moving fast - a finding tied to the same physics that just won the 2025 Nobel Prize. We're at the edge of understanding consciousness, biology, and technology as far more connected than we've been taught, and I think that's one of the more important open questions of our lifetime.

A few of my favorite things we cover in this episode: 

• The health and wellness space has changed: AI has made access to information easier, but it's also lowered the barrier to entry so far that "everyone's an expert all of a sudden" — people now follow who they resonate with over who has the best data
• AI and plagiarism: chatbots are quietly aggregating other people's content word-for-word, and a wave of "content mills" are hiring faces to read AI-generated scripts they didn't write
• The MIT study on AI and cognitive decline: using chatbots to write essays is linked to measurably reduced brain engagement — Thomas's rule: use AI to provoke your own deep thinking, never to validate you
• AI validation-seeking looks like an emotional affair: Thomas connects people "falling in love with their chatbot" to unmet childhood validation, since AI is built to always agree with you
• The existential AI debate: accelerationists like Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, and Elon Musk versus the fear that reaching "utopia" requires a collective surrender nobody is actually ready to make
• Thomas's blunt line on AI's endgame: "every single human being actually needs to be okay with death" to fully embrace a technology vulnerable enough to end us
• The silver lining if AI takes over the basics: physical strength and real human connection become the new currency
• The UC Davis avocado oil study: of the avocado-oil products it tested, the large majority came back with little to no detectable avocado oil in them — some were nearly straight soybean oil
• Why you can't fake the results: sterols are a plant oil's unique fingerprint, almost like DNA — avocado oil should be dominated by beta-sitosterol, and testing kept finding a mix of seed-oil sterols instead
• The brands named in the study: Chosen Foods, Siete, Primal Kitchen, and Boulder Canyon came back positive for adulteration; LesserEvil came out comparatively clean
• Mark Sisson's Primal Kitchen pushed back hard on the findings — Thomas's take: Sisson is personally trustworthy, but the fraud likely happened further up an unregulated avocado oil supply chain, not at the brand level
• The real case against seed oils isn't just cholesterol — it's oxidation: damaged polyunsaturated fats incorporate into your cell membranes and drive lipid peroxidation, which is where the metabolic harm comes from
• The Vital Farms egg controversy revisited: the linoleic-acid difference between a $9.99 carton and a $1.99 carton is negligible — the real issue is charging a premium without disclosing that
• Quantum biology deep dive: Gerald Pollack's exclusion-zone water, ATP synthase as mitochondria's "flywheel," new evidence protons are quantum tunneling through it rather than just moving fast — and why 2025's Nobel Prize in Physics (now being applied in tech) makes Thomas uneasy once you connect it to AI and consciousness
• Closing Art of Being Well round: sardines as his go-to unglamorous superfood, cordycepin for sleep, saffron for cortisol and REM, and a book recommendation on plant medicine and sound healing

Products Mentioned:

• Troscriptions - cordycepin-based sleep formula co-founded by Dr. Scott Sherr 
• The Fullest "Kinder Thoughts" saffron + turmeric capsules - available at drwillcole.com 
• Heal Your Cells with Dr. Will Cole - https://drwillcole.com/books-home-page/
• Dr. Joe Tafur's books: "Medicine Song" and "The Fellowship of the River" 
• Avocado oil brands named in the UC Davis study: Chosen Foods, Siete, Primal Kitchen, Boulder Canyon (flagged for adulteration), LesserEvil (came out comparatively clean)
• Vital Farms pasture-raised eggs (discussed re: the linoleic acid controversy)

Episode Sponsors:

• EllaOla is offering my listeners 20% off your first purchase. Just go to EllaOla.com/WILLCOLE, discount applied automatically; No code needed.
• Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code WILL at https://cowboycolostrum.com/will.
• Visit fromourplace.com/WILLCOLE and use code WILLCOLE for 10% off sitewide.
• You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit by going to fatty15.com/WILLCOLE and using code WILLCOLE at checkout.
• Text ABW to 64000 to get twenty percent off all IQBAR products, plus FREE shipping. Message and data rates may apply.

Happy listening, and we hope you learned a little bit more on the art of being well!

If you like what you hear, please rate and review the podcast, hit subscribe and pass it along to a friend.

In Health,

Dr. Will Cole