Cooking Oil: Top 5 Facts & Myths

What Do You Know About Cooking Oil? First of all...When we talk about Oil, most of the people think about Fat. Certainly, oil is fat; but all fats are not equally created. Not all fats are dangerous and eating fat won't make you obese than eating any other type of nutrients in excess. However, the type of oil you cook with will make a difference in your health.

Secondly, Did you know that one of the biggest causes of health problems in the world today is overuse of toxic vegetable oils?

This is mostly because the companies making these oils have created a false image. Most people are not aware that they are being fooled by these multi-million dollar companies only interested in thier profits.

Most vegetable oils such as corn, sunflower, canola, soy bean, etc. cannot be extracted by pressing unlike coconut or olive oil. These oils need to be extracted using chemical process. Consuming these processed products leads to inflammation and weight gain.

Vegetable oils contain high levels of Omega-6 oils. One of the side effects of having too much Omega-6 in your body is obesity. Cancer is indirectly linked to the consumption of vegetable oils too.

Oil is a vital part of cooking, especially in India where we cannot imagine preparing any dish without oil. If you are trying to lose weight, cooking with any oil can be tricky as most of them are high in saturated fats. Switch to oils that contain unsaturated fatty acids that will not only boost your weight loss efforts but also increase your nutrient intake.

Few Things You Should Know About Cooking With Oil

When it comes to cooking with oils, you have to choose between cooking for taste or cooking for health.

1. All cooking oils are equal when measured in calories

Fats and Oils have 9 Calories per gram so we always need to use the minimum amount for taste and cooking purposes. There are 135 Calories per tablespoon or 15 milliliters of oil, which is an average fat intake of 29 grams per person per day is enough to meet the nutritional requirements of Indians.

2. All cooking oils are not equal compared to their effect on health

When choosing a cooking oil, consider extra-virgin olive oil for healthy heart. It also can help lower your LDL (bad cholesterol) and raise your good HDL levels. Olive oil also contains beta carotene, and vitamins A, E, D and K and many more healthy nutrients. Research shows these nutrients have beneficial effects on almost every bodily function.

3. Do not always focus oil as a single nutrient but you need to consider your whole diet

The problem with restrictive diets is that when you cut down on fat and when you add sugar to compensate for the loss of taste. It is good to consider the entire range of everything you eat and aim for a nutritionally balanced mix that includes a small amount of healthy fats.

4. Which is good technique, sauté or Fry?

Frying in Pan at home is a cooking technique that uses a larger amount of oil and high heat for a longer period of time. Deep fat frying also uses a lot of oil at high heats but can be for a shorter period of time. Unfortunately, frying foods in oil – or any kind of fat – promotes free radicals.

With sautéing, generally, small pieces of food are cooked in small amounts of fat for a shorter period of time. No matter which oil you choose, use as little as possible. Plan meals with foods that do not require deep frying, rather it can be baked, grilled or quickly sautéed is a good step in cut down of oils.

5. Always make sure you use fresh oil

When you buy many different varieties of oil for different recipes, then store them for long periods in your kitchen, the oils oxidize over time and develop free radicals. Old oil is a harbor for free radicals. Instead, buy just a few kinds of oil in small amounts and store them in a cold, dry place.

Top 5 myths about cooking oil

Myth 1 – Reusing oil causes no health issues

People often tend to reuse oil several times irrespective of the type of oil used and its cooking purpose (frying, sautéing, etc). Reusing cooking oil is not a safe practice, as using the same oil again and again creates free radicals, which in turn cause cancer. In addition, overheating and repeated heating of cooking oil is dangerous for health as it causes detrimental effects on health like acidity, heart disease, irritable throat and Alzheimer's disease.

Myth 2 – Using more oil makes food tastier

The second most common myth about cooking oil is that the more oil you use while cooking, the tastier is your food. The fact is that using more oil to cook causes the food to overcook and also lose a lot of nutrients from the food. Additionally, consuming food that is high in oil increases your risk of health complications by raising your cholesterol levels in the body.

Myth 3 – Vegetable oils low in cholesterol should be used

Indians mostly use vegetable oils for cooking purposes. Most of us might have come across ads which say that one should choose a vegetable oil which is low in cholesterol, but in reality, vegetable oils are obtained from plants and hence, do not contain cholesterol. So do not ever go by ads that are a mere marketing gimmick, but check the nutritional information on the oil packs or cans to know about the nutritive value of the oil. 

Myth 4 – Traditional cooking oils are not heart-friendly

With the introduction of so-called heart-friendly cooking oils like sunflower or safflower oils in our diet due to the presence of PUFA (Poly Unsaturated Fatty Acids) in these oils, traditional cooking oils have been side-lined. However, research studies have proved that traditional cooking oils like ghee, mustard oil and coconut oil are better than heart-friendly oils in reducing your risk of acute heart disease, type2 diabetes and dyslipidaemias.

Myth 5 – Replacing cooking oil with olive oil is good for health

While olive oil is good for heart health and contains good amounts of omega 3 fatty acids, one cannot use it for cooking purposes. This is because olive oil has low smoke point (the oil becomes useless beyond this point as it starts to break down) and hence is not suitable for cooking. While normally used cooking oils like coconut oil, groundnut oil and rice bran oil have high smoke point and hence, can be used for deep frying, shallow frying as well as sautéing.