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Which oils are best to cook with?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Which oils are best to cook with?

#61

Post by jballanc »

forgetsusername wrote: post #47
jwr wrote: post #22

Over the years I've learned to take advice like this with a large grain of salt. Every couple of years this sort of advice seems to get reversed. I still remember reading about olive oil being bad for frying because it was supposedly less resistant to high temperatures and decomposed into something not too healthy. It's been the same with eggs, coffee, and many other things.

> I still remember reading about olive oil being bad for frying because it was supposedly less resistant to high temperatures and decomposed into something not too healthy. This hasn't changed. Olive oil has one of the lowest smoke points of all cooking oils. Once it's burning, you're eating all kinds of things, some of which aren't good for you. [ http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/05/cooking-fats-101-whats-a-... ]

Olive oil's smoke point is highly dependent on the variety. Refined olive oil is just as useful for high-heat frying as just about any other. Extra virgin, on the other hand, is not something you want to cook with.

In Turkey we have a variety known as "naturel sizma", which is what comes off the olives before pressing even begins. In contrast to other olive oil varieties, it's appearance is cloudy, and you can barely warm it before it starts smoking.

Re: Which oils are best to cook with?

#62

Post by gambiting »

jballanc wrote: post #61
forgetsusername wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still remember reading about olive oil being bad for frying because it was supposedly less resistant to high temperatures and decomposed into something not too healthy. This hasn't changed. Olive oil has one of the lowest smoke points of all cooking oils. Once it's burning, you're eating all kinds of things, some of which aren't good for you. [ http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/05/cooking-fats-101-whats-a-... ]

Olive oil's smoke point is highly dependent on the variety. Refined olive oil is just as useful for high-heat frying as just about any other. Extra virgin, on the other hand, is not something you want to cook with. In Turkey we have a variety known as "naturel sizma", which is what comes off the olives before pressing even begins. In contrast to other olive oil varieties, it's appearance is cloudy, and you can barely…

Really? I only ever cook with extra virgin olive oil. I really can't tell the difference :P

Re: Which oils are best to cook with?

#63

Post by gilrain »

eitally wrote: post #12

This article is very hard to draw conclusions from. For one, when they talk about frying, are they literally meaning deep frying / pan frying, or also including sauteeing and similar? Secondly, for Americans at least, they don't mention canola/rapeseed oil at all, and that's by far the most commonly used here. Thirdly, most people have absolutely no clue how hot their pans get when they cook, but I suspect the majori…

They do mention canola (rapeseed) oil, and they also mention the temperature they are looking at (365F), so it can apply to whatever cooking methods heat oil to this temperature (frying, searing, etc). Use an infrared thermometer on your pans when heating oil, and you'll soon get a feel for what temperatures are produced by your usual methods.

Re: Which oils are best to cook with?

#64

Post by phaemon »

forgetsusername wrote: post #47
jwr wrote: post #22

Over the years I've learned to take advice like this with a large grain of salt. Every couple of years this sort of advice seems to get reversed. I still remember reading about olive oil being bad for frying because it was supposedly less resistant to high temperatures and decomposed into something not too healthy. It's been the same with eggs, coffee, and many other things.

> I still remember reading about olive oil being bad for frying because it was supposedly less resistant to high temperatures and decomposed into something not too healthy. This hasn't changed. Olive oil has one of the lowest smoke points of all cooking oils. Once it's burning, you're eating all kinds of things, some of which aren't good for you. [ http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/05/cooking-fats-101-whats-a-... ]

The linked article doesn't mention anything about things "not being good for you". It simply says that if you burn the oil it might not taste very good.

Nor does it say that Olive oil has the lowest smoke point, except Extra Virgin.

Which is just as well: the idea that olive oil is particularly bad for cooking is utter nonsense. There's no evidence for it at all. If you have can link to a peer reviewed Chemistry or Medical paper that says differently, then I'm willing to change my opinion.

Re: Which oils are best to cook with?

#65

Post by joel_ms »

forgetsusername wrote: post #47
jwr wrote: post #22

Over the years I've learned to take advice like this with a large grain of salt. Every couple of years this sort of advice seems to get reversed. I still remember reading about olive oil being bad for frying because it was supposedly less resistant to high temperatures and decomposed into something not too healthy. It's been the same with eggs, coffee, and many other things.

> I still remember reading about olive oil being bad for frying because it was supposedly less resistant to high temperatures and decomposed into something not too healthy. This hasn't changed. Olive oil has one of the lowest smoke points of all cooking oils. Once it's burning, you're eating all kinds of things, some of which aren't good for you. [ http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/05/cooking-fats-101-whats-a-... ]

> This hasn't changed

Serious Eats has at least given conflicting advice on the topic less than a year after that article was published: http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/03/cooking-with-olive-oil-fa...

Which I think perfectly illustrates the problem.

Re: Which oils are best to cook with?

#66

Post by lsniddy »

gilrain wrote: post #63
eitally wrote: post #12

This article is very hard to draw conclusions from. For one, when they talk about frying, are they literally meaning deep frying / pan frying, or also including sauteeing and similar? Secondly, for Americans at least, they don't mention canola/rapeseed oil at all, and that's by far the most commonly used here. Thirdly, most people have absolutely no clue how hot their pans get when they cook, but I suspect the majori…

They do mention canola (rapeseed) oil, and they also mention the temperature they are looking at (365F), so it can apply to whatever cooking methods heat oil to this temperature (frying, searing, etc). Use an infrared thermometer on your pans when heating oil, and you'll soon get a feel for what temperatures are produced by your usual methods.

fun fact about rapeseed oil, the process of refining it actually turns it rancid so it must be deodorized and bleached before sale.

Re: Which oils are best to cook with?

#67

Post by gilrain »

Grue3 wrote: post #17
eitally wrote: post #12

This article is very hard to draw conclusions from. For one, when they talk about frying, are they literally meaning deep frying / pan frying, or also including sauteeing and similar? Secondly, for Americans at least, they don't mention canola/rapeseed oil at all, and that's by far the most commonly used here. Thirdly, most people have absolutely no clue how hot their pans get when they cook, but I suspect the majori…

They do mention rapeseed oil, and it's one of the best along with olive oil. And it has higher smoke point, so I suspected it's the best oil for frying for quite a while. Unfortunately it's very rarely sold in my country.

Refined and extra-light grades of olive oil have a higher smoke point than canola (rapeseed) oil, actually. I had been using corn oil for its higher smoke point, in comparison to canola, but have now switched to refined and extra-light olive. Works better for me than canola, as I sometimes fry at above 400F (canola's smoke point).

Re: Which oils are best to cook with?

#69

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

qznc wrote: post #34
richthegeek wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I emailed the author about the smoke point issue, his response as follows: > I agree - some extra virgin olive oils do have a smoke point as low as that, but certainly not all of them. The smoke point is not the major focus of the issue - we're investigating the oxidation of polyunsaturates (and, to a lesser extent, monounsaturates), which generate toxic lipid oxidation products when subjected to standard frying epis…

Ok, but the title says "Which oils are best to cook with?", which suggest a much broader article.

I'd suspect that the author had to compromise on the title, I'm not even sure they have any ability to influence the title.

Re: Which oils are best to cook with?

#70

Post by noxToken »

Oletros wrote: post #11
ousta wrote: post #7

has he already tried frying with olive oil? this is literally one of the shittiest oils to fry in. First the olive flavor dissapear even before it becomes frying temperature, second it is being replaced by a rancid taste that is totally awful due to the low heat resistance of olive oil. I don't care the study it is quite obvious that Olive OIl breaks down much before Sunflower oil and as such produce nocive substance…

> has he already tried frying with olive oil? this is literally one of the shittiest oils to fry in What the heck? > First the olive flavor dissapear even before it becomes frying temperature, All the people I know must be doing something wrong because that doesn't happen > second it is being replaced by a rancid taste that is totally awful due to the low heat resistance of olive oil. All the people I know must be do…

My guess is deep frying with extra virgin. The smoke point is too low to effectively deep fry anything with extra virgin olive oil. There are other variants, however, that have a much higher smoke point with which you can deep fry.
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