I am not any physician or fitness trainer. But I had a great chance to read umpteen health magazines due to my interest in this domain. You can call me a health fanatic (only in terms of reading articles lol).
Yours truly would like to share some insight from all that accumulated wealth of knowledge acquired after years of curious reading (health magazines).
I plainly choose to ignore the additional health benefits certain oils could promise. A better place to know that would be a physicians’ or dieticians’ office.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Non saturated alright, but which one?!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
After choosing any oil which has less saturated fats, another mammoth question presents itself.
Which one is the best among all the vegetable oils in the market?
This is usually measured in terms of what they call as smoke point.
Definition: The temperature at which the oil starts to decompose and fumes are visible.
Simple, the longer it takes the oil to get fumes (in layperson’s term.), while heating, the better it is. Reason being, that after it reaches the smoke point oil starts to breakdown creating acerloein. Which obviously is not good to smell as well as eat.
Now, how does one identify which oil has a better smoke point, certainly not by buying all the different oils and timing it. Which for one would be annoying and more so would be very inaccurate.
There are statistics available out there, I will stick some incomplete statistics borrowed from free sources, here so as to make this article complete in itself (what an oxymoron):
---------------------------------
Smoke Points
---------------------------------
Unrefined canola oil (smoke point is below 225 F)
Unrefined sunflower oil (smoke point is below 225 F)
Unrefined peanut oil (smoke point is below 320 F)
Unrefined high-Oleic sunflower oil (smoke point is below 320 F)
Unrefined walnut oil (smoke point is below 320 F)
Unrefined olive oil (smoke point is below 320)
Refined peanut oil (smoke point is below 450 F)
Refined avocado oil (smoke point of below 520 F)
------------------------------
Conclusion
-------------------------------
Avocado oil is supposed to be the best for deep-frying and also in general, because it doesn’t reach the smoke point until heated to 520 F. There are other oils, which compete with avocado oils like grapefruit oil. But the bad part is these oils are mighty expensive and not easily available. But if by any chance you can afford it then please stick to it. It doesn’t taste bad either.
In my humble opinion, olive oil is the best choice. Besides all the other health benefits it brings, its not that hard to find or expensive. It’s the best compromise to get both the worlds.
Olive oil in itself has very many categories so one must remember as a rule of thumb not to use extra virgin olive oil for cooking and only use it in salads and sauces or on a cooked delicacy.
Rule for oils in general
-- If your cooking involves extensive deep-frying please never use canola oil and any one, which has low SP.
-- Most importantly never reuse the oil, as every time that oil is used its SP reduces by a great degree.
-- Adding salt also lowers the SP, I have seen it in many Indian culinary shows on TV especially in the end, there is a tips section, claiming: “adding salt just before frying onion would hasten the process of frying”, please don’t do any such thing.
Signing off,
Happy Healthy living!