30 Mar Cooking Oils To Avoid {episode 223}
Wondering what cooking oils to avoid and WHY? We’re going over this topic, so you can be educated on your next grocery store trip + getting oils that nourish your family!
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Main Takeaways of Cooking Oils To Avoid
Saturated fats are some of the most stable fats to cook with because all of the carbon links are filled with a hydrogen. Basically, they don’t oxidize as easily when heated. You don’t want an oil to oxidize because then free radicals are made + this can be harmful to our cells.
Monounsaturated fats have ONE (hence the ‘mono’) carbon chain that doesn’t have a hydrogen attached and polyunsaturated has MANY (hence the ‘poly’) carbon chains without a hydrogen. The more chains you don’t have complete, the more unstable the fats are when cooking, so the more likely they will oxidize.
Cooking oils to avoid are mainly the industrialized polyunsaturated fats. Cooking with oils that have monounsaturated fats, like olive and avocado oil, are okay, but just check on their smoke point, which is a point that tells you the temperature that they shouldn’t exceed because then they could become damaged and oxidized.
- Corn Oil
- Canola Oil
- Vegetable Oil
- Soybean Oil
- Safflower Oil
- Sunflower Oil (Except high-oliec sunflower oil, I’ll talk about in a second)
- Cottonseed Oil (Never use this oil because since it’s technically a textile, Roundup levels can be much higher!)
The other main point with these oils is that they are usually refined and using toxic chemicals to extract them from the plant. This is crazy cheap to do, which is why these oils are chosen for most processed foods because they are cheap to make and use.
Looking at the type of oil also shows the type of omegas. The Standard American diet has AWFUL ratios between omegas. Omega-6 can be pro-inflammatory (but still needed) and omega-3 can be anti-inflammatory (and of course, still need). They key is to have better balance between these. Let’s break down each other these oils…
- Corn Oil – Usually genetically modified, loaded with Roundup, it has about half omega-6/polyunsaturated fats. The other half consists of both monounsaturated fats and small amounts of saturated fat.
- Canola Oil – While mostly monounsataurated fats, 30% of it is polyunsaturated fats, but majority of the polyunsaturated fats are omega-6. Canola oil is notorious for extracting in harsh ways from rapeseed.
- Safflower Oil – Mostly monounsaturated fats, 15% is polyunsaturated and mostly omega-6. Not the worst one, but usually a harshly refined oil.
- Sunflower Oil – Mostly polyunsaturated fats with 71% being omega-6.
- Soybean Oil – Half polyunsaturated fats and mostly omega-6, often genetically modified, and used Roundup on plant.
Sticking with more saturated fats for cooking, like coconut oil or grass-fed butter (if you are okay with dairy) is more ideal, along with high monounsaturated oils like olive or avocado (again, just check smoke points).
Hope this made things a little easier to understand! XO
