Cooking oil?

Is there a such thing as healthy cooking oilCooking oil?
Olive oil is the healthy oil that's currently the rage in food circles. Those of us are of a Mediterranean background and have been eating the stuff since birth know that while olive oil is good it does have some very specific limitations.


*The first one being the obvious: It's going to impart an olive taste to anything that it's used to cook with. In some cases that's a desirable quality in most cases it's not.


*The much over hyped EVO should never be cooked with. Heat destroys the very distinctive flavors that the buyer paid so much money to get.


If you want to cook w/olive oil-use pure.


*Olive oil has a very low smoke point which further limits it's use as an everyday frying oil


* Because of the hype ,olive oil has gotten really expensive which makes it impractical for every day usage.


Personally I use canola oil for just about everything and only use olive oil for very specific recipes.


Concerning deep fat frying: Properly done there is nothing unhealthy about deep fat frying because it is a dry cooking method.[ First -year culinary students always get that one wrong on tests]


As a previous poster said ,Hot oil turns water to steam , steam expands by 1200% pushing out away from the food and forming a boundary layer that the oil can't penetrate.


As long as the oil is hot enough to allow the rapidl transformation of water to steam everything works the way it supposed to.


Where most cooks mess up deep fat frying is that they don't allow the oil to return to temp before adding more food . The oil gets progressively cooler,the water to steam conversion is less violent and the food gets progressively greasier.Cooking oil?
olive oil
Olive oil is probably the best but usually the oils made from plants like olive, soybean and canola are the best.
Yes, olive oil is considered healthy cooking oil. its great to cook with, use in salads and whatever you choose. it is not great for deep frying. its boiling temperature smokes at a lower point than lets say..peanut/corn oil.





corn oil is mainly used for baking and deep frying, if you can, try to stick to olive oil
as you already see, olive oil is one such healthy cooking oil. however, all oils are not interchangeable. you can't just switch oils and cook in the same manner. different oils have different boiling temperatures so its best to use the oil specified in a recipe.
Unsaturated vegetable(e.g. corn,canola, olive, safflower, peanut) oil in reasonable amounts is fine.
Sure as long as your remember that you should only have small amounts of any fat in your diet. That said, Extra Virgin Olive Oil tops the list. Organic Canola and Soybean are pretty good too. However the best fats for you come from things that break down at high temps like Flax and Hemp.





Deep fried anything is going to unhealthy though.
Yes, the lighter oils: Safflower/sunflower, Canola, etc.


Peanut oil used to be favoured for high temperature.


Olive oil is considered best for cold use, like salads.
Olive oil is considered a healthy oil. And it is definitely OK to cook with for some things, but other things the low smoke point get's in the way (extra virgin olive oil is generally only used cold, but IIRC Mario Batali from Food Network uses it exclusively, including for deep frying).





Some cooking methods simply aren't possible without the presence of fat. Even the least of the oils is healthier than lard, butter, or shortening. And fats carry flavors.





According to a Good Eats episode on deep frying, as long as water vapor is escaping the food being fried, it can't absorb oil, but the second it stops it will absorb it, so it is possible to have relatively healthy deep fried stuff if you stay on top of it and pull it out once it stops bubbling (if it needs more cooking after that finish in the oven)...
Corn Oil


Canola Oil