I get that there is probably a more complex answer in reality, and probably an objective ranking, but I’m interested in what people’s perceptions are.
- Extra virgin olive oil for anything where the taste is a good thing
- Any oil with high monounsaturates and zero saturates (the rest being polyunsaturates). This may be a seed oil.
Extra virgin olive oil (and it has to be extra virgin) is known and scientifically proven to be very good for you.
Seed oils are today highly controversial - I avoided them for many years - but current science research suggests that they are perfectly safe, and indeed good for lowering cholesterol.
Here’s a real scientist, working and published in exactly this area, talking about this exact question: https://youtu.be/VRlleOTBq7k?si=trB8t5xRjOJml5ug
They are all quite unhealthy and claims about magical compounds within this or that refined oil are largely nonsense. That said, plant-based oils are generally much less bad for you than butter and lard, and increasing unsaturated fat proportion is a good idea.
Oil in general is overused as an ingredient when savory flavors can be achieved with mushrooms, msg, nutritional yeast, tomato, and more. However it is certainly useful as a tool for heat transfer in cooking but can be used in much lower quantities for that purpose than you might expect.
I generally use avocado oil for any very high heat cooking surface like a wok, olive oil or avocado oil for other general high heat cooking surface, and nice flavorful olive oil or spiced olive oil for oil as an ingredient.
Fwiw, I’m pretty convinced that the anti-seed oil crowd is approximately as grounded in science as the anti-vaccine crowd - that is to say, not at all.
Im not a doctor, but trained in (doing and reading) science. I’ve read up on this and can pretty confidently say you’re right.
Seed oils are probably bad for you but the rest are either good or neutral. Olive or avocado oil is probably at the top but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with butter either
Seed oils are definitely better for you than the alternatives, especially butter.
I love butter: but it’s absolutely worse for you than canola oil.
FYI, there was a similar thread recently on !yurop@lemm.ee
For frying I use avocado oil, it has a high smoke point.
Only just started using this, it’s excellent. Makes a great mayo too.
Coconut, olive, anything else just for occasional flavor but better if avoided, canola and soy are the worst. that’s my personal unresearched ranking.
Researched input on your ranking: canola and soy are healthier than coconut since they’re both multiply unsaturated whereas coconut is saturated and has shorter chains. As far as I can tell, canola has a pretty good profile of fatty acids.
Okay, again I haven’t read a thing so I’m not saying you are wrong. I’ve just heard too many times that coconut is better for cooking, especially frying, and also to be eaten raw. Something about oxidation and temperature. Whatever. If canola is healthier I might switch to it, it’s far cheaper after all.
Hmm maybe that means it yields some better results, flavour and texture-wise? I’ve only ever used coconut oil as a cosmetic, and the only research I’ve done is health-based. As a general rule of thumb though, saturated fats are worse for you than non-saturated ones, and the less saturated a fat is, the lower the temperature where it goes from liquid to solid. Ie, butter melts at a higher temperature than coconut oil, so it’s more saturated. Coconut oil melts at a higher temperature than canola (canola goes solid way below the freezing temper of water), so it’s more saturated.
I was in a post on reddit sometime when we all got lectured about how every vegetable oil sucks and it’s better to eat lard or duck fat or tallow. “You clearly don’t know about lipids”. Haven’t figured out of that’s true or not but I’d definitely rather use butter than margarine.
Veggie oils are totally fine and animal fats, while tasty, are definitely worse for you.
I still use butter in cookies though.
“don’t care taste good”
I really do not see what the point of them are and I don’t really taste what ‘benefits’ they claim to provide. They’re almost required for a lot of baking and cooking needs. However, I’ve found that sometimes, they can be avoided and the food will turn out fine on it’s own.
Vegetable, Canola, Peanut, Sunflower .etc don’t look or sound healthy to me. I instead use Coconut.
