Cooking oils

You have many options when it comes to selecting fats and oils for cooking. But it's not just a matter of choosing oils that are healthy, but also whether they stay healthy after having been cooked with.

The smoke point is the temperature in which an oil begins to burn and smoke. Smoking is evidence of the fat's breakdown due to heat. When you're cooking at high heat, you want to use oils that are stable and don't oxidize or go rancid easily. When oils undergo oxidation, they react with oxygen and form free radicals and harmful compounds that you don't want to be consuming.

The smoke point for cooking oils varies greatly and depends upon the components, origin, and even level of refinement. Knowing the smoke point of oils is important because heating oil to the point where the oil begins to smoke produces toxic substances and harmful free radicals like mentioned above.

My personal favorites are coconut oil, avocado oil and ghee.

Oils to avoid

Unfortunately, most cooking oils with a high smoke point are very unhealthy as well as usually being genetically modified and full of pesticides, glyphosate and chemicals. They are overall highly processed and refined, often also hydrogenated to increase their stability, which results in the by-product trans fats. Oils are stored in plastic and clear bottles which does not prevent heat and light from getting to it. This worsens the rancidity of the oil, although the oil was probably already rancid before it went into the bottle. Plastic also leakes more toxic substances when a fat is being stored in it, which means that an oil stored in plastic, will contain plastic and hormone disrupting elements like xenoestrogens.

Stay away from canola or rapeseed, corn, sunflower, soybean and other refined vegetable oils as well as margarine. Don’t be convinced by the price tag. Canola and vegetable oils are cheap which is tempting, and for that reason it’s also an ingredient in most packaged/junk foods and used at restaurants too, so just keep that in mind. Consuming it occasionally is okay, but make sure that the fats and oils that you are using on a daily basis are of good quality. These refined vegetable oils contributes to chronic inflammation, imbalanced hormones, poor nutrient absorption and poor brain health ++

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is a great cooking oil, loaded with nutrients and pretty stable when heated. I use organic extra virgin coconut oil, but you can also get coconut oil without the taste and smell of coconut, if you prefer that.

Coconut oil has powerful health benefits and is particularly rich in a fatty acid called lauric acid that has antibacterial and antiviral properties which can improve health and help kill bacteria and other pathogens. The fats in coconut oil can also boost metabolism and increase the feeling of fullness compared to other fats.

Grass fed and organic butter

Butter was demonized in the past due to its saturated fat content, but there really is no reason to fear real butter. It's the processed margarine that is the truly awful stuff. Real butter is good for you and a highly nutritious food.

Make sure to choose butter from grass-fed cows. This butter contains more Vitamin K2, Vitamin A (retinol) and other nutrients, compared to butter from grain-fed cows. I always choose low-pasturized, or even better; unpasteurized/raw butter. The less processed the butter is, the higher nutrient content it has. Unpasturized dairy is also easier to digest, than pasturized products.

Ghee

Even better than butter; clarified butter, or ghee. Ghee is a type of fat made by heating butter (ideally grass-fed butter) to boost its natural nutrient profile and flavor as well as removing the lactose and casein proteins, leaving you with pure butterfat. Ghee is full of fat-soluble vitamins and healthy fatty acids, and has been used for thousands of years in Ayurvedic healing practices.

Ghee is an excellent choice for cooking because of its high smoke point, even higher than butter, and beneficial effects on health.

Olive oil

Olive oil is well known for its heart healthy effects and is believed to be a key reason for the health benefits of the mediterranean diet. Some studies show that olive oil can improve biomarkers of health. However, for high heat cooking, olive oil is not the best option. I rarely cook by using olive oil, as I find the other options mentioned in this posts, to be better alternatives, but olive oil can be used on a low to medium heat, but preferably raw. Make sure to choose quality extra virgin olive oil.

Avocado oil

The composition of avocado oil is similar to olive oil. It can be used for many of the same purposes as olive oil, but the smoke point is much higher, which makes it a perfect oil for high temperature cooking. You can cook with it, or use it cold.