What Vegetable Oil Should I Use For Cooking?

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

What Vegetable Oil Should I Use For Cooking?

First of all, I must admit that my question “what vegetable oil” in the title is a bit misleading. Namely, the different oils are so different that in this context we will divide them to two groups, one being olive oil and the other group includes what we call vegetable oils here.

I want to simplify things a little and leave out most oils because they are inferior to the ones recommended later here. We will get back to them in a later post.

By features, we’ll consider heat tolerance and fatty acid content. Some oils are great for frying as they tolerate heat well. Some oils contain more beneficial fatty acids than others. These are our basic criteria in this comparison and I believe you will find answers that help you decide what vegetable oil you want to cook with.

Good And Bad Fats

All oils seem to have different cooking and health advantages, but what then are these advantages? Oils consist of heart healthy, or good fats, and fats that are believed to be artery clogging, bad fats.

Good fats include unsaturated fats. Those are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, both of which are believed to lower total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, the so-called bad type of cholesterol.

What Vegetable Oil Clogs The Arteries? Or Do They?

When we talk about bad fats, we know that saturated fats ans trans fats are being referred to. Now when it comes to saturated fat, the old school fact had us believe that it clogs the arteries.

Actually, when you take a closer look at the clogged artery, the deposit comprises anything but fat. Oh, there IS fat but just a few percent. If it hardly contains fat, how can fat be the main cause of clogged arteries?

Calcium Is The Villain… Or Rather, Lof Fat Diet

The major cause of a clogged artery, according to the new theory, is calcium that has not been absorbed by the body. No wonder in this era of low fat frenzy. Namely, your body needs fats for vitamin D to be absorbed.

Many fats provide vitamin D too. Now if your diet provides too few calories from good fats, your absorption of calcium will suffer, possibly leading to the unabsorbed calcium to clog arteries.

Because of this new situation in the field of fatty acid and heart disease research, I suggest that you forget about the old theory of fats clogging the arteries. More and more physicians are turning around to back up the new teaching.

But the big ship turns around slowly.

So What Vegetable Oil Should You Use?

Consider your own taste. Choose the oil that you like. It won’t clog your arteries.

Olive oil is a natural juicy substance that is derived from olives. You can consume the product right after it is pressed from the fruit. Olive oil is natural and the only vegetable oil you can use right on the spot.

Virgin olive oil contains polyphenol too. It is an antioxidant that protects the body. Free radical damage is what we always need to be protected against. Olive oil is a great source of monounsaturated fats.

For people who are suffering from gastritis or ulcers, olive oil helps activate pancreatic etc. hormones, helping to get relief. Moreover, olive oil has been shown to lower the risk of gallstones.

The low smoke point of olive oil makes it a better choice for low temperature purposes, such as salads. For frying, use coconut oil. And if the saturated fat in coconut rings bells, leave a comment.

Canola oil tolerates heat but the Omega-3 fatty acids in it are in a disadvantageous form for the body to utilize. It is Alpha linoleic acid that the body needs to transform to EPA and DHA. It is a slow process.

Better to eat fish for Omega-3s. And a good supplement.

Olive oil has more health advantages and is a more natural oil in comparison to vegetable oil. Olive oil has a lower tolerance of heat than vegetable oil because it contains less fat.

Here another fascinating post on fats.

All comments welcome, thanks!

Use olive oil for low heat cooking and coconut oil for high temperatures. You can also use butter. More on these things later, keep reading the blog. As to the original question, I hope you found an answer and know what vegetable oil to use.

Ilkka “Flash” Saarisalo