what's the best quality cooking oil? Options

[KraterosHellas]

i want to know what the most expensive and healthy and high quality oil is

[AFRevival]

i want to know what the most expensive and healthy and high quality oil is

I thought it was olive oil, but it must be EXTRA VIRGIN.

Don't be fooled by labels like "light" olive oil, that is misleadingly referring to the lighter color of the oil and not about how fatty it is. Oil is oil.

[Ralf]

When I drive through the countryside here, there's fields of canola as far as the eye can see.
The dollar seems to be driving oil quality in this direction.

Still there's a huge range of oils on the supermarket shelves......avocado oil, almond, macadamia, and some stuff I never thought you could make oil out of.

[billhud]

Olive oil is one of the healthiest fats you can eat. Although everyone knows too much fat can make you fat, as well as contribute to heart disease, many people don't realize that too little fat is not healthy either. Your body requires enough essential fatty acids to function properly and stay healthy.

Fats can be broken down into 2 main categories: saturated and unsaturated. Saturated fats are the ones most doctors and nutritionists will tell you to avoid because they have been shown to raise cholesterol levels which can contribute to heart disease. The other category of fats is unsaturated. These fats come in two forms: polyunsaturated and monounsaturated and both are healthy fats in moderation.

What makes olive oil special is that it's a monounsaturated fat. This fat has been shown to not only lower your bad cholesterol levels (LDL) but can also raise your good cholesterol levels (HDL). This amazing oil has also been shown to help lower blood pressure and protect against strokes. This is good news for everyone and particularly those with heart disease and anyone who needs to watch their cholesterol.

Olive oil is not only healthy, but it is delicious and is the popular cooking oil for Italian and Mediterranean foods. You can easily incorporate olive oil into your cooking once you know what to purchase and how to cook with it.

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Source: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/olive-oil-l...m-the-gods.html

Kamagra

[chiuchimu]

1) Olive Oil
2) Canola Oil

The rest are about the same. Animal based oils are the worst.

[boobu]

Olive oil is not only healthy, but it is delicious and is the popular cooking oil for Italian and Mediterranean foods. You can easily incorporate olive oil into your cooking once you know what to purchase and how to cook with it.

actually olive oil has almost a gasoline smell and flavor. it does not have a pleasant flavor or smell to everyone. it does taste good in it's own context but not appropriate for every recipe or spice combinations. olive oil is good for health though.

1) Olive Oil
2) Canola Oil

The rest are about the same. Animal based oils are the worst.

No, they are not. it depends also on what you are using the oil for to ascertain the best oil for that purpose. coconut oil is best for frying as it can withstand high temperatures without burning or breaking down with free radicals as much as other oils. so in that case, it is best or healthiest to use (for frying).

there are a lot of good oils. sesame oil is known to also help lower cholesterol, blood pressure and reduce weight even. almond oil has healing benefits etc. there are a lot of good oils but they are usually too expensive to produce for mass consumption.

This post has been edited by boobu: Nov 7 2010, 04:21 PM

[samnang]

i don't like the taste of coconut oil, but i use it anyways cuz of its health benefits. go read about them.

[Jessyca]

i don't like the taste of coconut oil, but i use it anyways cuz of its health benefits. go read about them.

I have heard of health benefits for coconut oil but what do you cook exactly with it?? Could you give me some examples thanks

[han2]

It depends on what you mean by "best quality".

For example, canola oil is healthy, but not if you use it for high temperature cooking, where peanut oil would be more suitable for the task. Likewise, "extra virgin olive oil" is quite healty when consumed unheated, such as in salad dressing, but when you heat it up, you'll end up with many burnt particles in the oil, rendering it unhealthy.

Coconut oil is very useful for preserving many traditional women's hair, in South East Asia, protecting it from the harmful effects of the sun when working out in the fields, and is a major ingredients in many curries, even if the actual coconut oil isn't used in cooking the curries, since most South Indian and South East Asian Curries uses "coconut milk", which contains a large proportion of coconut oil. As to whether it's healthy or not, it's still open for debate.

[boobu]

I have heard of health benefits for coconut oil but what do you cook exactly with it?? Could you give me some examples thanks

examples for what? it's a oil that can be used like any other oil. it's already been explained that it can be used for frying. it has a higher temperature frying point so it does not break down as easily as other oils so it's best to use (for health purposes) for frying. if you understand that oils heated to high temperatures produce massive free radicals(contributor to cancer), then it makes sense it's a better oil for frying. even if it wasn't, it's a healthy oil/fat in moderate quantities.

http://www.alternative-healthzine.com/html/0108_2.html

This post has been edited by boobu: Nov 8 2010, 08:00 AM

[samnang]

I have heard of health benefits for coconut oil but what do you cook exactly with it?? Could you give me some examples thanks

i just use tiny amounts when pan-frying vegetables, eggs, or rice. enough to keep things from sticking.

i don't like using a lot cuz the coconut taste will be overwhelming to me. although maybe that's cuz i use cold-pressed extra-virgin oil. refined versions might be tasteless.

it also has an odd mouthfeel 'cause of its super low visocity when warmed up. it slinks right down your throat and makes you want to gag.

if you want to consume a bunch of it as a health supplement, it's good to blend it into a smoothie with frozen fruit. the cold temperature turns the oil into solid little granules that are a breeze to swallow.

This post has been edited by samnang: Nov 8 2010, 10:54 AM

[chiuchimu]

No, they are not. it depends also on what you are using the oil for to ascertain the best oil for that purpose. coconut oil is best for frying as it can withstand high temperatures without burning or breaking down with free radicals as much as other oils. so in that case, it is best or healthiest to use (for frying).

there are a lot of good oils. sesame oil is known to also help lower cholesterol, blood pressure and reduce weight even. almond oil has healing benefits etc. there are a lot of good oils but they are usually too expensive to produce for mass consumption.

Wow! what are you talking about. I'm talking about cooking oils from the supermarket. I never seen almond oil or coconut oil at the supermarket(how much does stuff like that cost?)- I see vegetable oil, corn oil, canola oil, olive oil and that's it. (Also, lard, shortening, butter and margarine).

By the way, sesame oil can't be used for cooking in the same way as cooking oils, only flavoring because it burns easily. Besides, it's too expensive.

[mushrooms]

Ming Tsai always uses grape seed oil for cooking in general. It might probably be the healthiest. It's about as expensive as olive oil, if not more...

It's not terribly hard to find if you look around. If your supermarket happens to carry peanut oil, then they might have grape seed oil also.

This post has been edited by mushrooms: Nov 16 2010, 04:59 PM

[mushrooms]

4. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Costco's Kirkland Signature Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil may be the best-kept secret in the store. At $9.99 for 1.5 liters, it is roughly half the cost of the well-known Bertolli brand, and yet, according to at least one independent study, it's much better. In a recent comparison of 19 olive oils on the market, The Olive Center, a research group at the University of California-Davis, found that Kirkland Organic was one of only five in the study not mixed with cheaper refined olive oil that can spoil the taste. The other four at the top of the list were all high-end brands that cost as much as five times Costco's. Make sure you buy the Costco version that's labeled organic, though, as opposed to the one that's simply called "extra virgin olive oil." It'll cost a little bit more, but it's worth it.