What cooking oil do you use?

Type 1 & LADA
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My partner’s genetics make cholesterol a problem even though he’s pretty young and really watches what he eats (no pork, cheese, etc).

We’ve been trying to figure out the best cooking oil to use while avoiding saturated fats because that was his doctor’s advice.

From what I can tell, it seems like sunflower oil might be our best choice because it’s high in monounsaturated fat, lower in polyunsaturated fat, and low in saturated fat.

Apparently it is not good to cook with oils that have high amounts of polyunsaturated fat because these break down into harmful substances.

We don’t deep fry or anything. We mostly use oils to sautée vegetables. We don’t usually use high heat, but I would like to know which oil would be healthiest if we did choose to cook something on high heat.

We settled on a couple of oils previously, then we did more research and realized they were not ideally suited for cooking. I’m curious what everyone else is using.

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We use canola oil to cook the vegetables over high heat, and anytime we aren’t cooking over high heat and want the flavor, we use olive oil.

I would think that the total amount of oil would be more important than the type of oil however. In a typical use case we use 1-2 Tablespoons of oil for 6-8 servings.

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I agree with @Chris that total amount is more critical than type of oil. If you’re not using high heat, you’re already better off where oils are concerned. If you’re sautéing every day, that might be a problem, regardless of the type of oil.

I use regular olive oil (not virgin or extra-virgin) for most stovetop cooking, but when olive isn’t appropriate to the dish I really like sunflower. The rare times I deep-fry (I just hate the mess) I use peanut oil. It’s high in polyunsaturated fat, but as I say, I don’t use it often.

Canola is popular as a neutral-tasting, versatile oil, but almost all canola is GMO, if that’s a concern.

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I use olive oil for everything. However, I’ve never done research on oils, and it’s possible that I’m using it in unhealthy ways.

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Depends largely on the food.

Peanut oil for Chinese or Japanese food. It has a high smoke point and has a nutty flavor that is good, and is high in monounsaturated fats.

Olive oil for Italian. Also high in monounsaturated fats.

Canola oil for foods that I don’t want to add a flavor to, since it is neutral. It is also low in sat fat and high in monounsaturated fat.

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If you are looking to use the absolute minimum amount of oil grapeseed oil is pretty amazing at coating a pan with a tiny amount of oil.

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I only use olive oil. I love olives though!

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Another vote for EVOOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil Only). We never deep fat fry at high temps, and when would we ever not want to taste the olive oil :slight_smile:

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Ditto what Eric said, we use peanut oil when we stir fry in a Wok and, as others have suggested, Olive oil the rest of the time. Honestly, we use very little oil in general.

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EVOO for normal cooking, Avocado oil for higher temperatures

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Thanks for all the responses.

I think sunflower oil with oleic acid still sounds like the winner for cooking for us. Canola oil sounds like another good option that I wasn’t really considering. It is also fairly low in polyunsaturated fat.

I’ll keep using extra virgin olive oil for dressings. It seems that it’s okay to use this for cooking on low heat, but I don’t really want to worry about the temperature too much.

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I use cold-pressed oils (less refined, not chemically bleached) for cooking (olive oil with perhaps a generous pat of butter) and baking (avocado or sunflower). We don’t do much frying (though a deep-fried turkey is delish as are pommes frîtes) but like peanut oil when we do.

There is some evidence to suggest that canola oil has some less desirable properties. Here is a link you may find of interest:

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I use evoo, canola, avocado, coconut, and of course it making legit Mexican food… nothing but pure lard.

Never have paid much attention to where any weigh in on the health scales

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we cook with olive oil and generally don’t cook at high heat. But when we do use high heat we may use canola.

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That’s a good point. I’ve been reading up about this as well.

Thank you for the link about canola oil. Very helpful.

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That is so funny. We definitely used lard as young kids on a farm but I haven’t since then!!

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Then your biscuits are suffering, biscuits with 50/50 lard/butter are amazing!

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Yep, true! I love those biscuits, too!

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And shortcrust pastry with leaf lard (NOT regular backfat lard, which can taste too porky) is a revelation. I didn’t mention lard because @Katers87’s boyfriend doesn’t eat pork. But I deep-fry with it when I have it.

Then there’s duck fat for potatoes …

Incidentally, many people say that if you’re cooking with extra-virgin olive oil, you’re wasting your money. You pay for the flavour of that fine oil, and even lowish heat kills the flavour. You’re better off using regular or even “light” olive oil for cooking with, and saving the good stuff for drizzling or dressings and uncooked sauces.

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Yum! :yum:

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