I’ve got a popular video on the FlavCity YouTube channel that reviews which cooking oils to use and which ones to stay away from. There are so many cooking oil options at the grocery store, and it’s really hard to know the difference between canola oil, peanut oil, and expeller pressed grapeseed oil. Be sure to watch the video below for more details.
This blog is going to help you understand how oils are made, which ones I think you should use while cooking, and which ones I want you to stay away from. After this, you can check out my cooking salt review blog.
Is Olive Oil Safe To Cook With?
Don’t believe the hype. Olive oil is 100% safe to use for cooking. For some crazy reason, people started thinking that olive oil can burn really easily, that it turns into a carcinogen, and it’s really bad for you. Olive oil will only start to burn if you heat it above 400 degrees F, and if you see that happening, just turn the heat down!
You will not get cancer from cooking with olive oil, even if it starts to smoke a little bit. While olive oil does not have the same smoke point as canola oil (meaning the temperature at which the oil starts to degrade), it is much healthier for you than canola, vegetable, soybean, corn, and peanut oil.
Olive oil is a monounsaturated which means it is actually much more stable than canola oil. The only difference is that canola and veggie oil are so highly processed, which is done to force the oil into being more stable.
The general rule is this: use olive oil for cooking, not too high of heat, and use extra virgin olive oil for finishing, just a drizzle at the end. If you are doing high heat cooking, use avocado oil instead.
Is Canola Oil And Veggie Oil Bad For Me?
The easy answer is: Yes. Both canola and vegetable oil are so highly processed and refined, that they are toxic for your health! The same is true for peanut oil, grapeseed oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, and safflower oil. These oils are heated to very high temperatures to help extract the oil from the plant.
The issue with high heating these oils is that in the process the molecular structure is changed from a polyunsaturated fat to a trans fat! Your body can’t recognize this type of fat any more so it stores it as a trans fat. As if that were not bad enough, they use a chemical called hexane to help get every last bit of oil from the plant.
They say the hexane is completely removed, but I don’t buy it. This is why these oils are so cheap because they are mass produced using GMO veggies and I urge you to NEVER use these cooking oils.
What Oil Should I Use To Fry In?
I find that avocado oil is too expensive to fry with. Instead I always fry using expeller pressed oils. Expeller pressed means a machine is putting a good amount of pressure on the plants to extract the oil, and temperature can rise to about 500 degrees F. This is 100% safe, and way better than the kind of heat and processing they use for the oils we just mentioned above.
You can use expeller pressed peanut oil, sunflower oil, or safflower oil to fry food with. These oils are not as processed as the ones above and are much cheaper than frying with avocado oil. If you are going to use expeller pressed canola or veggie oil, make sure it’s organic or non-GMO. You don’t want to consume gmo veggies.
Watch the YouTube video embedded in the post to more clearly understand which cooking oils you want to use and avoid. I also talk about how coconut oil is actually good for because not all saturated fats are created equal. I don’t believe the hype about coconut oil being bad for your heart. It actually has very unique properties that make it healthy.
I love fat – good quality fat to pan sear a juicy chicken thigh, bake a loaf of keto bread, or drizzle on top of freshly pan seared fish. Fat not only helps food brown and enhance the flavor, but it can also totally transform the flavor of a dish, dressing, or marinade.
Make sure to check out my favorite recipes that use good quality oil:
I really like your recipes and the fun way you present them. However, you make some “over the top” comments that bother me. For example, ‘… toxic for your health!…’. Do you have a medical / science degree and where is the data to back up your statements? I appreciate your enthusiasm but Statements like these seem very definitive and seem intended to manipulate the reader rather than inform them.
Thanks for your comments. There’s plenty of data out there to easily research why I don’t like canola or vegetable oil.