Olive oil for cooking

[Spaniel]

My wife says she will start using olive oil when cooking Thai food. I noticed that there are several different types available. Which would be the best for cooking?

[dddave]

Olive oil is not suggested for high temperature cooking, it has a very low smoke point and also looses a lot of it's beneficial compounds when heated.

There is a huge diversity of opinion over which oil is best/healthiest/greenest for cooking...there was just a long and contentious thread about it on this forum a few weeks ago.

I suggest you read up on it a bit and decide for yourself.

[AyG]

None of them. Olive oil has an inherently strong taste. It'll ruin the taste of the food.

Probably best and healthiest to use pork fat, as was done here in the good old days before vegetable oils were introduced.

[BuaBS]

Olive oil is great , and you can bake with it too. Potatoes baked in olive oil is very tasty. But the price here in Thailand is way over the top.

I find sunflower oil the best for its money : around 58 B/liter and it is very neutral tasting.

[meatboy]

pork fat.

[Srikcir]

For frying, grilling and BBQ I recommend King Rice Bran Oil. High in anti-oxidents, zero trans fatty acid, no chloresterol.

[AyG]

High in anti-oxidents, zero trans fatty acid, no chloresterol.

That's really not saying very much.

(1) Antioxidants in the diet have no detectable effect on the body whatsoever. The body is already awash with vast numbers of them, and a little consumed by mouth does nothing.

(2) Trans fats are extremely uncommon in nature. You really only encounter them in significant quantity in hydrogenated oils and fats, such as in some brands of margarine and some commercial biscuits. No vegetable oil contains hydrogenated oil.

(3) No vegetable oil contains cholesterol; cholesterol is only found in animals.

[Pinot]

We use Sabroso Extra Virgin. I've tried others and come back to this brand. Available everywhere.

I've heard that olive oil isn't the best but I just went and asked the TG, she says she uses mostly olive oil for cooking. Palm oil for deep frying. I don't taste it but maybe I'm use to it.

I told her to try rice bran oil (above). She knows about it. Never heard of rice bran oil.

[Xonax]

Rice bran oil is my best choice for cooking and cost only 30% of what olive oil costs. Before I always used olive oil, but now find the price to be way to high.

[KarenBravo]

Another vote for rice bran oil.

[xylophone]

First of all look at this statement:

“Cholesterol Control: The World Health Organization and the American Heart Association have both stated that rice bran oil has the best possible composition of monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and saturated fats compared to all other vegetable oils”.

Then read this…………..

http://preventdisease.com/news/13/021113_Rice-Bran-Oil-One-Big-Health-Disadvantage-Outweighs-All-Its-Advantages.shtml

What/who to believe? So coconut oil which was “scorned” for years could now be our saviour!

[KarenBravo]

Nothing wrong with the cheap soybean oil stocked everywhere.

Only time I don't use rice bran oil is when I cook Indian food. I use peanut oil instead.

[xylophone]

Nothing wrong with the cheap soybean oil stocked everywhere.

Only time I don't use rice bran oil is when I cook Indian food. I use peanut oil instead.

I think many of us were led to believe that cooking with "vegetable oils" was healthy and now that seems to have been turned on its head, along with the reversal in thinking as regards animal fats and so on being bad for you.

Many of the "vegetable oils", especially the cheaper ones, are heavily processed and refined and latest research points to the fact that they are very bad for you, especially when heated. In addition they contain large amounts of polyunsaturated fats, which are not good for humans.

Heating some of these oils also produces aldehydes, again not a good thing to ingest.

I have attached a few links for those who wish to know more about the subject, however I would like to quote the following from one of the articles: –

"Unlike traditional fats (butter, tallow, lard, olive oil, etc.) our industrial vegetable oils are a very new addition to the “food” world. In fact, they were practically non-existent until the early 1900s. But with the invention of certain chemical processes and a need for “cheap” fat substitutions, the world of fat hasn’t been the same since.

Consider that at the turn of the 20th century that amount of vegetable oils consumed was practically zero. Today the average consumption is 70 lbs a year. Per person.(And since I know plenty of people who don’t touch the stuff, that means lots of people are consuming even more!)

Links: – http://authoritynutrition.com/6-reasons-why-vegetable-oils-are-toxic/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11981884/Cooking-with-vegetable-oils-releases-toxic-cancer-causing-chemicals-say-experts.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/healthy-eating/everything-you-know-about-cooking-with-oil-is-wrong/

http://www.thankyourbody.com/vegetable-oils/

[AyG]

Many of the "vegetable oils"... contain large amounts of polyunsaturated fats, which are not good for humans.

There's something wrong there. Polyunsaturated fats are more than good for you: they are essential for human life since the body can't produce its own.

[xylophone]

Many of the "vegetable oils"... contain large amounts of polyunsaturated fats, which are not good for humans.

There's something wrong there. Polyunsaturated fats are more than good for you: they are essential for human life since the body can't produce its own.

The information contained within the links explains it all............seems as if it's a balance between polyunsaturated and saturated fats which is critical to the human body.

Anyway, the information contained within the links explains it far better than I can.