We hear a lot about fat in the news. How much fat we should eat? How to shed pounds of fat with the latest “diet”? One of the topics that comes up is, how healthy cooking oils are in our nutrition?
To start, it’s important to understand that there are two types of fat that are often conflated: dietary fat and body fat. Dietary fats are one of the three basic macronutrients that make up our nutritional needs. While body fat is the tissue that lines under our skin and around our organs, storing excess energy and providing insulation. Important to understand, eating dietary fats alone don’t make body fat; it’s a combination of fat types, caloric intake, metabolic energy expenditure, and genes.
But, too much dietary fat, say, in our less-than-healthy cooking oils, can contribute to heart disease, including but not limited to symptoms and conditions such as stroke, heart failure, pulmonary embolism and myocardial infarction. Scary stuff! According to the American Heart Association (AHA), cardiovascular disease is still the leading cause of death in the United States, with more than 840,000 deaths per year in the most recent analysis (2016). AHA estimates that over one million such coronary events in 2019 alone.
To get the healthiest cooking oils for your hearts’ sake, in this article I cover the basics you should know about healthy cooking oils.
Difference Between Healthy and Unhealthy Fats in Cooking Oils
In order to understand healthy cooking oils to use, you need to understand the makeup of the fats that are resident within those cooking oils we cook, sauté and bake with every day. These fats include saturated, unsaturated, and trans dietary fats, and cholesterol. Most of the difference between these dietary fats have to do with the hydrogen and carbon bonds of the molecules that chain together to make up these oils, but let’s see if we can’t demystify these dietary fats with less chemistry and more practical advice!
Saturated Fats
Saturated dietary fats are usually present in animal-based products such as dairy, animal meats, palm oil, coconut oil, milk and cream, and cooking margarine. These are dangerous to eat in large amounts since this type of dietary fat increases heart disease risk and cholesterol levels in your blood. These fats are typically solid at room temperature.
These “sat fats” are also in many foods we find packaged on the grocery store shelves, such as baked goods, cakes, crackers, fried foods, and potato chips. Where possible, you should do as much as possible to reduce sat fats in your nutrition lifestyle!
Unsaturated Fats
Next, we have unsaturated fats, which are healthier types of dietary fats and usually liquid at room temperature. While sat fats contribute to clogging up arteries throughout the body, unsaturated fats reduce that risk along with purging the body of excess blood cholesterol. Win, win!
Unsaturated fats come in two main forms: polyunsaturated and monounsaturated. Polyunsaturated fats are contained in Omega-3 (fish) and Omega-6 (soybeans and some nuts (e.g., brazil nuts)) fatty acid-containing foods, while monounsaturated fats are present in avocado, canola oil, olive oil, and some nuts (e.g., almond and cashew nuts).
When in doubt, look to those “good fats” from fish, nuts, seeds and vegetables whenever possible.
Trans Fats
The scariest of all dietary fats are the artificially-produced trans fats (or, trans fatty acids). These are fats that were healthy fats (liquid at room temperature) but bonded with hydrogen to become solid at room temperature, mimicking saturated fats. Their only purpose was to reduce spoilage of fats and have no health benefits.
While they’ve been banned in the United States, beware that imported products may still appear with them, so read your food labels for anything that says “hydrogenated” in the ingredients. Also, “0 trans fat,” by law, can be up to 0.5% trans fat in the ingredients, so read those ingredients and monitor portions based on that.
Cholesterol
Finally, we have our final dietary fat that happens to also be a body fat: cholesterol. It is present in the body to help produce hormones, cell membranes are made out of this stuff, fat-soluble vitamins, and even aid in digestion. Cholesterol that we eat has two main types such as unsaturated fats–HDL and LDL. HDL cholesterol is the healthy kind and you should focus on foods that contain HDL cholesterol, which all happen to be foods that contain good fats.
Now that we have a better understanding of dietary fats, we can look at the various cooking oils and determine which are healthier than others, and which to cook with when.
Healthy Cooking Oils
To understand healthy cooking oils, we need to understand the archetype of unhealthy ones. And, one to focus on is canola oil. Created by Canadian scientists (“Canada” plus “oil” became “Canola”) by crossbreeding several types of oilseed crops, canola oil is a mostly genetically-modified, highly-refined, and lacks nutrient-richness our bodies need. It goes through high heat and chemical bleaching and deodorizing, among the many other processes needed from such a high-demand, high-yield oil crop. And, the final nail in the coffin is that canola oil lacks any unique flavor so it adds little to the complexity of the food you’re making. Overall, canola oil should be avoided.
Here are three healthy cooking oils to tackle your household’s cooking, sautéing, dipping and baking needs: extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, and safflower oil.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (and Olive Oil, Generally)
Popularized by Rachel Ray in her television appearances and show, cookbooks and cooking products, EVOO (or, extra virgin olive oil) is the unrefined (higher oleic acid contents, more antioxidants and greater anti-inflammatories present) style of oil from the olive tree. EVOO is best for dipping and unheated uses of oils (vinaigrettes, unheated sauces, dressings and such), as other oils have higher smoke points.
Avocado Oil
Newer than other oils in the healthy cooking oils category, avocado oil is packed with monounsaturated fats and a high cooking temperature (375 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit). It’s also less refined than some other cooking oils, and even with a little saturated fat it retains more nutrients and minerals for the truly health-conscious.
Safflower Oil
Safflower plants are adorned by bright yellow-orange-red pom-poms. They are the source of safflower oil, which happens to have one of the highest smoke points of most cooking oils (510 degrees Fahrenheit). When you need a neutral flavor for cooking, sautéing or baking, safflower oil is ideal for its plentiful levels of unsaturated fats.
Two notable mentions include peanut and sesame oils for cooking and sautéing jobs, where you don’t mind the nutty and complex flavors (like noodle dishes).
Caveats
Notes on all healthy cooking oils:
- Any oil that has started to smell bad or rancid is no longer healthy. You should dispose of it immediately, as it is harmful.
- Smoking or burned oils create dangerous carcinogens that create inflammatory response in the body. Once burned, dump the oil and start over so as not to contaminate your food, and your body.
- Don’t reuse cooking oil. It seems economical and tempting, but once you’ve cooked (heated) the oil, you should not use that oil again as you’ll create more carcinogens that will then enter the food, and again, your body.
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Healthy cooking oils does require some studying when looking at food labels at the grocery store. But, once you know there are a few oils that you can command the kitchen with, it’s much easier.
What’s your favorite healthy cooking oil, and why? Let me know in the comments!