Apr 20 2009
Don’t Spoil Your Oil
Cooking with oils has become a sensitive topic of late. Some nutritional experts think it’s ok to fry your food in oil. Others think that the heating of oil changes the oil composition, making it less healthy. So what are you to do?
Well, because it is true that some oils can change with different cooking conditions, here are a few suggestions we make to our clients:
1) Don’t use additional fats when pan-frying or grilling meat. Instead, use a pan or grill with a non-stick surface, or if you absolutely must, coat the surface with a minimal amount of cooking spray (the olive oil version of Pam is a good choice). This will decrease the amount of mutagenic chemicals formed when frying
meat in oil.
2) Don’t use mono or poly-unsaturated fats when panfrying. When pan-frying non-meat dishes, use a pan with a non-stick surface instead. If absolutely necessary to prevent sticking, you can coat the pan with a minimal amount of cooking spray (as above) – but don’t use any more monounsaturated oil (corn oil, canola oil, safflower oil, etc.) than that, and avoid using polyunsaturated oils (like flax oil). These oils are not very heat stable and will become highly oxidized and lose their essential fatty acid content with cooking. And while we do use extra virgin olive oil in cooking
from time to time (in the smallest amount possible), if you want to be really cautious you should consume your Extra V unheated as well. If a small amount of cooking spray won’t do the trick, cook with a tiny amount of butter or coconut oil, which are more heat stable.
3) When baking, use small amounts of saturated fats and/or olive oil only. As discussed above, these are best to use for stability reasons.
4) Don’t deep fry foods. Deep frying foods (esp. in hydrogenated fats) is the equivalent of inviting heart disease over for dinner.
