cooking oil

[jack daniels]

can anyone tell me which is better for you?
corn oil
olive oil
sunflower oil
vegetable oil
Thanks all you AB members!

[muchlovex]

I am sure it would be Olive Oil.

[figure]

The gurus say Olive oil and walnut oil are the best. But it all depends on your use of the oil ie. for salad dressing, frying, cooking etc.
For salad dressing extra virgin olive oil and walnut oil, for frying grape-seed oil and peanut oil. Regular cooking I use olive oil.

[jack daniels]

Thanks muchlovex
it's all a bit much when certain oils are better for dressing i.e. olive oil but can burn if you use it for frying. What oil is best for what job? Anyone?????

[jack daniels]

thanks figure
you're thinking on the same lines as me and I hadn't seen your post - only after mine went on
Thanks very much

[tiggerblue10]

Toasted sesame oil is nice for a quick stirfry.

[nickmo]

As noted - depends on what you are using it for....

If its the highest amount of omega 3 for example you have to ditch the foreign olive oil and use UK produceed cold pressed rape seed such as Oleifera.
Buy online here: http://www.borderfields.co.uk/oleifera/index.p hp

Considerably higher Omega content in rape seed oil plus it has a much lower saturated fat content too - olive oil will be about 14% or so, but even sunflower oil is about 10%. The rape seed about 6%.

Sunflower oil is better for frying and could be used as well for a carrier oil for salad dressings as it has a very neutral flavour that won't interfere with the rest of the dressing.

Use a mustard oil for curries - and pumpkin seed oil is great in baking or for a flavour for a dressing too.

Hemp, flax seed, saff flower and linseed oil are actualy the best for omega content I believe and as they are a vegetable source for it it is easily digested, is sustainable and you can also find organic varities too if you fancy.

Hope this adds too..

[abanker]

Nickmo, I remember buying linseed oil from the hardware and used it to soften potty. Is it the same linseed oil we use for cooking? Thanks.

[tiggerblue10]

I thought linseed and flax oils were the same thing. Maybe I got that wrong too. Oh well never mind.

[jack daniels]

i believe some oils smell wierd when heated up but I don't know which ones - I wouldn't want the smell to put me off!
I use sesame oil in stir fry.

[rodz]

I have just looked on the rapeseed bottle and it gives saturated fat as 1Gram.
I cannot find any other oil with such a low rating.
I use it for chips but olive oil for salads etc. as the rapeseed oil is a bit bland.
The only trouble with sunflower oil is that if you use it for chips over and over again it does form harmfull trans fats.
So only use it five or six times.
rodz

[nickmo]

Brown flax is the furniture oil - but it can also be 'eaten' just as the other which is known as yellow flax.

Linseed is the other name for flax but I always use both names when nagging people bout he benefits of some oils in case they only know of the one name for the product ( I regularly berate shoppers at farmers' markets I attend - lately its been about good for you oils, recently its that ASDA flog you a frozen cheesecake with 68 ingredients, and so on...)

Quite right to change oils after 6 burns or so. Some of the extended life oils only have extra life as they have added vitamin E, but sunflower has this as a natural component. Even so, best to only use for specific time.

You can of course improve it by filtering when cold after a fry - its what tights were invented for.....

If you fancy getting a bit of other info about healthy oils have a look at : http://whfoods.org/foodstoc.php

All oils have a flash point some higher than others so are better for frying and they can also deteriorate on heating - and go rancid. There are a load of resources on the web that might advise or if you want a list of oils one starting point is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vegetable _oils and follow the links.

Hope this helps..