No, the film does not test seed oils in fast food directly. Dr. Mike ate only Burger King burger patties for 30 days — no bun, no fries, no sauce — so the fryer oil and the bun's seed-oil load were deliberately left out of the experiment. What the film does show is a beef patty isolated from everything else on the tray, which is a narrower and more useful question than the messy 'seed oils vs. saturated fat' argument people have online.
What did Dr. Mike actually eat for 30 days?
The protocol was narrow on purpose. As the film shows, Dr. Mike said on camera: “I’m eating just Burger King burger patties and drinking water and that’s it. No seasonings. No flavorings. Nothing else for 30 days.” That’s 20 patties a day, 600 over 30 days, ordered in batches of 140 a week, as the film shows.
That framing matters for this question. There was no bun in the protocol, no fries, no ketchup packets, no fryer at all. He wasn’t eating a Whopper. He was eating the flat-top patty and nothing that touched a fryer basket.
Does the film test seed oils in fast food?
No. This is the honest answer and it’s worth being direct about it. Fries at most fast-food chains are cooked in a shared fryer with vegetable oil blends that typically include soybean or canola oil — the seed oils people are worried about. Sauces and some bun formulations bring in more of the same oils. None of that was part of the 30-day protocol.
A separate detail from the same production: when the crew priced out an Impossible Whopper bun for comparison, the film shows a figure of 10 grams of sugar in that bun, and the book separately notes that a typical fast-food bun can carry up to 9 grams of sugar, per the book. Sugar isn’t seed oil, but it’s a reminder that the bun is its own separate variable — and it, too, was excluded from what Dr. Mike actually ate.
The film isolates the patty from everything else on the tray — that's exactly why it's worth watching.
What does the evidence say about linoleic acid and seed oils?
Linoleic acid is the dominant fat in most seed oils, and the research on it is not as one-sided as either camp online likes to claim. A pooled analysis of 30 prospective cohorts across 13 countries found that higher blood and tissue levels of linoleic acid were associated with lower risk of major cardiovascular events, and arachidonic acid was not associated with higher risk — the evidence says, per Marklund et al. 2019.
On the other side, recovered data from an old but large randomized trial found that replacing saturated fat with linoleic-acid-rich vegetable oil lowered cholesterol but did not lower death from coronary heart disease or all causes, and in that trial, greater cholesterol drops were associated with higher mortality — the evidence says, per Ramsden et al. 2016, a re-analysis with real limits: it’s old, the population was institutional, and follow-up was incomplete. These two studies don’t agree cleanly, and that’s the honest state of the science — not a settled verdict either way.
Is fryer oil different from a flat-top patty?
Mechanically, yes, they’re different exposures. A patty cooked on a flat-top picks up its own rendered fat and whatever oil is on the grill surface, but it isn’t submerged in oil that’s been reheated across multiple batches all day. Fryer oil used repeatedly at high heat undergoes oxidation, and oxidized oils are a distinct chemical question from the fatty-acid profile of a fresh oil. The film doesn’t measure oxidation products in fryer oil at all — that wasn’t part of the design, and I won’t pretend otherwise.
What the film does track around food more broadly is process, not fry chemistry: a blind taste panel scored Burger King at 34 points versus 46 for grass-fed, as the film shows, which speaks to taste, not oil handling. If you want the seed-oil-in-the-fryer question answered with real numbers, this film isn’t where you’ll find it, and I’d rather say that plainly than stretch the data.
What does the broader ultra-processed-food evidence say?
Step back from seed oils specifically and there’s a stronger, more consistent signal about processing itself. In a randomized crossover trial, people on an ultra-processed diet ate about 500 more kcal a day and gained 0.9 kg in two weeks, while the same people lost 0.9 kg on unprocessed food — the evidence says, per Hall et al. 2019. An umbrella review of 45 pooled analyses covering close to 10 million participants linked greater ultra-processed food exposure to higher risk of cardiometabolic disease, common mental disorders, and mortality — the evidence says, per Lane et al. 2024, though that review is observational and can’t prove the oil itself is the mechanism versus sugar, additives, or simply eating more.
The film suggests that isolating one variable — just the patty — was the point of the whole design, precisely because fast food is normally a bundle of variables that’s impossible to untangle on a tray.
What do I tell clients about restaurant fats?
In my experience, the seed-oil argument online moves faster than the research does, and people often end up avoiding a burger patty over an oil it was never fried in. I tell clients to separate the questions: what’s in the patty, what’s in the fryer, and what’s in the bun and sauce are three different exposures with three different answers, and lumping them together makes it harder to actually change anything.
I also tell people that individual results vary, and a documented 30-day self-experiment on one man’s blood is not a clinical trial and not medical advice — it’s one data point, filmed carefully.
Where can I see what was actually tested?
If you want the full list of what got measured — hormone, cardiometabolic, liver, thyroid, kidney and inflammatory panels — and when, that’s laid out in what happened to Dr. Mike’s blood. For how the patty protocol itself was built week to week, see day 1 of the 30-day experiment.
Frequently asked questions
Did the 600-burger experiment test seed oils?
No. Dr. Mike ate only Burger King burger patties with no bun, fries, or sauce, so fryer oil and seed-oil-containing sides were not part of the protocol.
What's the difference between a flat-top patty and fried fast food?
A flat-top patty picks up its own fat and grill surface oil, while fried items sit in oil reheated repeatedly at high temperature, which is a distinct oxidation question the film didn't measure.
Does the evidence agree that seed oils are harmful?
No, it's mixed: one large pooled analysis linked higher blood linoleic acid to lower cardiovascular risk, while a re-analysis of an older trial found replacing saturated fat with linoleic-acid oil lowered cholesterol without lowering death rates.
Is ultra-processed food itself a bigger issue than the fat type?
The observational evidence links ultra-processed food exposure broadly to cardiometabolic risk and mortality, and a controlled trial found people simply ate more calories on ultra-processed diets, but neither isolates seed oil as the specific cause.
Where can I watch what Dr. Mike actually ate and how his labs were tracked?
The protocol and bloodwork points are shown in the film, available to rent or buy on Amazon, and detailed further in the companion book.
The Bottom Line
The straight answer is that the 600-burger experiment was not built to test seed oils in fast food — it stripped the meal down to a beef patty and water so the patty could be judged on its own, separate from the bun, the fries, and whatever oil sat in the fryer that day. That’s a narrower question than the one dominating the seed-oil debate online, and it’s a more honest one to actually answer with bloodwork.
If you want to see exactly what was eaten, what was measured, and where the numbers went over 30 days, watch The Keto Project on Amazon and read 600 Burgers in 30 Days.
Sources
- Marklund et al. 2019 — Biomarkers of Dietary Omega-6 Fatty Acids and Incident CVD and Mortality
- Ramsden et al. 2016 — Re-evaluation of the traditional diet-heart hypothesis (Minnesota Coronary Experiment)
- Hall et al. 2019 — Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain
- Lane et al. 2024 — Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review
This article is for information only and is not medical advice. Individual results vary. Speak to a qualified clinician before changing how you eat.
The whole experiment is in the film. 600 burgers, 30 days, every blood test — and the ending we never post.
Watch The Keto Project on Amazon