These days I reckon a majority of people have some sort of opinion on cooking oils. To me it seems quite difficult to know exactly where to stand though.
Here's a very high level gist, but it's very non-committal around forming any sort of conclusion
www.massgeneral.org
So to delve deeper, back in the day butter, marg, lard etc. were used for cooking until somewhere around the 1950s, cooking oils like vegetable oil started to come about and only ever gathered popularity until the last few years. The reason for this is probably mostly due to cost and market capitalism, but also partly because of the idea that consuming less saturated fats is good for you. Butter, marg, lard etc contain much higher amounts, and there is a proven link between excessive saturated fat consumption and the risk of heart attacks and other coronary diseases.
www.bhf.org.uk
However, you can't really have missed that there's now a lot of hype around the dangers of seed oils, with endless instagram/facebook etc influencers claiming that they increase inflammation and can increase cancer risks. And that butter/tallow/lard is a safer - not to mention more 'natural' - alternative.
Until recently I was happy to dismiss these worries, but at the end of last year the results of study which warned of their dangers got some traction in mainstream media
www.independent.co.uk
www.diabetes.co.uk
Once you see this sort of thing hitting the mainstream, you can't help but feel like a 'better safe than sorry' approach might be worthwhile, so I started looking at buying olive oil as a replacement for vegetable oil (which is actually rapeseed oil). But then you see say at Tesco, 1L of own brand Olive Oil is £7.00 and 1L of own brand Veg Oil is £2.00. At 3.5x times the price - no doubt in part due to all the social media specialists telling people to stay away from seed oils - you then go back to thinking actually maybe I WON'T worry about it.
Going deeper into the actual science behind the issue, there are 2 reasons why some claim seed oils are harmful.
The first is the inflammation issue, which is down to the imbalance between Omega-3 and Omega-6 in your diet. Some seed oils supposedly have an awful lot of 6, but very little 3. There's tonnes of sources on this topic out there, but the actual real-world application for humans isn't that clear and the conclusions are very mixed.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
www.health.harvard.edu
At the end of reading into this, my conclusion is that as long as you are getting a decent amount of omega-3s, you are probably not going to fall foul of any issues. Indeed a lot of advice suggests assessing the ratio of omegas in your oils.
Below is a clear chart which looks at the makeup of common cooking oils/fats and the glaring thing for me is that olive oil contains almost no omega-3, but does contain some omega-6s, and has a much higher 6/3 ratio [=10] than canola (same as veg. oil) [= 2.1]. So if you are specifically worried about all the inflammation/omega6:3 ratio stuff, unless I'm missing something, olive oil is not actually the answer?
The second claim why seed oils are harmful is down to the way they are produced, in particular the use of hexane. Hexane is an industrial solvent, and due to being derived from crude oil and being a volatile substance, again social media shouty types have highlighted this as a scandal.
The rebuttal is that the trace levels remaining after production of the oil is less than 1 part per million, which is an entirely safe level, and probably is dwarfed by the amount of similar toxins that are ingested just by walking next to a road, according to the Harvard School of Public Health. Worth noting, from what I can read the EU regulates this to 1ppm, but apparently the US doesn't. Maybe that's a source of the issue where in the US levels can be higher.
nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu
Finally, there is an aspect which is common to all cooking oils, which is the smoke point. It's commonly said that if you exceed the smoke point of an oil during cooking, the compounds in it can break down and become rancid and harmful. This is more likely to happen when cooking with butter or olive oil than it is with refined vegetable oils. I don't think it's a hugely complicating factor to any of the above, but just something to be aware of.
So which cooking oil do you use mostly, and why? Have I got some conclusions wrong? Missed some useful information that might change my mind? Really interested in proper discussion on this. At the end of the day if I've correctly persuaded myself that I don't need to spend a fortune on olive oil because everyone else has got themselves in an unnecessary tizz about the matter then that would feel like a win.
Here's a very high level gist, but it's very non-committal around forming any sort of conclusion
Seed Oils: Facts & Myths
Alison Kane, RDN, LDN, breaks down facts and myths surrounding seed oils.
www.massgeneral.org
So to delve deeper, back in the day butter, marg, lard etc. were used for cooking until somewhere around the 1950s, cooking oils like vegetable oil started to come about and only ever gathered popularity until the last few years. The reason for this is probably mostly due to cost and market capitalism, but also partly because of the idea that consuming less saturated fats is good for you. Butter, marg, lard etc contain much higher amounts, and there is a proven link between excessive saturated fat consumption and the risk of heart attacks and other coronary diseases.
Watch: What does fat do and what is saturated fat?
There's lots of confusion when it comes to fat. Watch our animation to learn what fat does in your body, and get answers to common questions about saturated fat and which foods contain it.
However, you can't really have missed that there's now a lot of hype around the dangers of seed oils, with endless instagram/facebook etc influencers claiming that they increase inflammation and can increase cancer risks. And that butter/tallow/lard is a safer - not to mention more 'natural' - alternative.
Until recently I was happy to dismiss these worries, but at the end of last year the results of study which warned of their dangers got some traction in mainstream media
Common cooking oil could be causing colon cancer surge in young people, warn doctors
Unhealthy seed oils like sunflower, grapeseed, canola, and corn could trigger chronic inflammation in the body
www.independent.co.uk
Latest study links seed oils to colon cancer risk
A new study has raised concerns over the impact of certain cooking…
www.diabetes.co.uk
Once you see this sort of thing hitting the mainstream, you can't help but feel like a 'better safe than sorry' approach might be worthwhile, so I started looking at buying olive oil as a replacement for vegetable oil (which is actually rapeseed oil). But then you see say at Tesco, 1L of own brand Olive Oil is £7.00 and 1L of own brand Veg Oil is £2.00. At 3.5x times the price - no doubt in part due to all the social media specialists telling people to stay away from seed oils - you then go back to thinking actually maybe I WON'T worry about it.
Going deeper into the actual science behind the issue, there are 2 reasons why some claim seed oils are harmful.
The first is the inflammation issue, which is down to the imbalance between Omega-3 and Omega-6 in your diet. Some seed oils supposedly have an awful lot of 6, but very little 3. There's tonnes of sources on this topic out there, but the actual real-world application for humans isn't that clear and the conclusions are very mixed.
The importance of the ratio of omega-6/omega-3 essential fatty acids - PubMed
Several sources of information suggest that human beings evolved on a diet with a ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 essential fatty acids (EFA) of approximately 1 whereas in Western diets the ratio is 15/1-16.7/1. Western diets are deficient in omega-3 fatty acids, and have excessive amounts of...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
No need to avoid healthy omega-6 fats - Harvard Health
Omega-6 fats were once criticized as unhealthy, but researchers for the American Heart Association have concluded that they are in fact beneficial to the heart. ...
www.health.harvard.edu
At the end of reading into this, my conclusion is that as long as you are getting a decent amount of omega-3s, you are probably not going to fall foul of any issues. Indeed a lot of advice suggests assessing the ratio of omegas in your oils.
Below is a clear chart which looks at the makeup of common cooking oils/fats and the glaring thing for me is that olive oil contains almost no omega-3, but does contain some omega-6s, and has a much higher 6/3 ratio [=10] than canola (same as veg. oil) [= 2.1]. So if you are specifically worried about all the inflammation/omega6:3 ratio stuff, unless I'm missing something, olive oil is not actually the answer?
The second claim why seed oils are harmful is down to the way they are produced, in particular the use of hexane. Hexane is an industrial solvent, and due to being derived from crude oil and being a volatile substance, again social media shouty types have highlighted this as a scandal.
The rebuttal is that the trace levels remaining after production of the oil is less than 1 part per million, which is an entirely safe level, and probably is dwarfed by the amount of similar toxins that are ingested just by walking next to a road, according to the Harvard School of Public Health. Worth noting, from what I can read the EU regulates this to 1ppm, but apparently the US doesn't. Maybe that's a source of the issue where in the US levels can be higher.
Ask the Expert: Concerns about canola oil - The Nutrition Source
I’m confused about whether canola oil is healthy. I know that it’s a polyunsaturated fat, which I’m told is good, but then I also hear that I should stay away
nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu
Finally, there is an aspect which is common to all cooking oils, which is the smoke point. It's commonly said that if you exceed the smoke point of an oil during cooking, the compounds in it can break down and become rancid and harmful. This is more likely to happen when cooking with butter or olive oil than it is with refined vegetable oils. I don't think it's a hugely complicating factor to any of the above, but just something to be aware of.
So which cooking oil do you use mostly, and why? Have I got some conclusions wrong? Missed some useful information that might change my mind? Really interested in proper discussion on this. At the end of the day if I've correctly persuaded myself that I don't need to spend a fortune on olive oil because everyone else has got themselves in an unnecessary tizz about the matter then that would feel like a win.
