No pictures today, folks–this is a big topic and a very serious one. I hope you’ll stick with me as I give you the bare brushstrokes of the picture.
Oils and fats form the basis of our food preparation: we use them for cooking, baking, and roasting. We dress our salads with them, season our stir-frys with them, and dip our breads in them. Even if the oil/fat you use is only a small percentage of the final dish, the frequency of them adds up. They are a major component of our diet…and our health problems, most of which are aided and abetted by inappropriate use of low-quality oils. The inappropriate usage is usually unintentional, but the low-quality oils are a deliberate result of modern-day cost-cutting manufacturing processes.
There are three main things to consider when choosing and using your oils: refined vs. unrefined, whether or not they’re suited for heating (most are not), and what ratio of omega fatty acids they contain (most have too many omega-6s and not enough 3s and 9s).
Refined oils have been cleaned, crushed, steamed, pressed with high friction heat, extracted with solvent, distilled, bleached, deodorized, and steamed again. This results in a rancid, damaged oil that has been stripped of its nutritional value–it should only be used for industrial applications, not in the human digestive tract.
Unrefined oils have been cleaned and cold-pressed. The best ones are pressed in an oxygen-free and light-free environment, the two elements that cause rancidity. The best unrefined oils are then sold in opaque glass bottles to spare them from oxidation caused by light. The designation “extra-virgin olive oil” is reserved for olive oil that has been prepared without industrial refinement. Any other label on olive oil–”pure,” “light,” etc.–means that it has been heavily refined.
Many of the seed oils available today are heavily refined, particularly those oils that are difficult (if not impossible) to extract using cold-press methods. These generally-to-be-avoided oils include avocado, grapeseed, rice bran and wheat germ. Other heavily-refined (and vastly overused!) oils include corn, soybean and cottonseed. Unfortunately, this terrible trinity is what is used in virtually all commerically-made food products because production of these crops is subsidized–this means that these crops and their oils are very inexpensive for food manufacturers to purchase in bulk.
Because of their fatty acid structure (the ratio of polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, and saturated fats), some oils/fats are better suited than others to handle high heat without breaking down and oxidizing (turning rancid). Saturated fat is more stable than unsaturated fats, so the best oils/fats to use when cooking with high heat are ghee (the oil that separates from the milk solids when you clarify butter; this is often done in French and Indian cooking), animal fats, and tropical oils such as coconut and palm. For light sauteéing, you can safely use olive oil, butter, sesame, or hazelnut. (Of course, all oils/fats suitable for high heat are also suitable for lower heat.) The most-delicate oils should NEVER be heated and should be used only to dress salads and other cold dishes. These include flaxseed, hazelnut, and olive. Pumpkin seed oil, pistachio, and walnut are other nice options.
Omega-3 fatty acids are very susceptible to breaking down; so are omega-6s, though to a slightly-lesser degree. Omega-9s are a bit hardier than their cousins. Because of this, the oils containing high amounts of omega-3s are also the oils that have a very short shelf life and should never be heated. The main omega-3-containing oil is flaxseed; olive oil and hazelnut oil also have relatively-high proportions of omega-3s. Olive oil and hazelnut are also rich in omega-9s, which is why they can handle light sauteéing and flaxseed cannot–it contains very low amounts of omega-9s. Main sources of omega-6s include safflower and sunflower, both of which should not be heated much past 300 degrees F. (Depending on at what temperature a dish must be baked, safflower and sunflower oils are sometimes useful for baking.)
The main issue with the omega ratios is that our modern Westernized diets include far too many omega-6s and not enough omega-3s. (9s are also at a premium.) For that reason, I focus on trying to include the omega-3-rich oils in my dishes when they are well-suited for the task (i.e., the required temperature conforms with the oil’s fatty structure). I also only purchase oils that are unrefined and cold-pressed/-expelled; if organic oils are available, I generally choose those. While they are a bit more expensive, it’s more than worth the trade-off in future dollars that I won’t have to spend on health-related problems.
The subject of oils and fats is a complicated one–far too complicated to explain in detail here–but remember, choose unrefined oils whenever possible and make sure to use them appropriately. Avoid low-quality, highly-processed oils and products containing those oils. Choose oils that are farther back on the shelf and away from the light (unfortunately, most oils are still packaged in clear glass containers). And when you get home, immediately store your oils in a cool, dark place, away from light and heat. You may even wish to store flaxseed oil in the refrigerator to prolong its life.
Here’s to healthy oiling!
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Tags: baking, frying, handling, health, oils, salad dressing, storage
