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.
- S tier: tallow, duck fat, butter, ghee, lard
- A tier: coconut oil
- B tier: olive oil, avocado oil
- C tier: peanut oil
- F tier: everything else
- 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
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.
Olive Oil: Healthy
Motor Oil: Unhealthy
Unless your a car, then flip that around
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.
For frying I use avocado oil, it has a high smoke point.
There just was an oil comparison on Dutch tv. Basically all refined plant based oils perform the same. So sunflower or canola do just as fine as avocado oil.
For half the price (or more)
Only just started using this, it’s excellent. Makes a great mayo too.
FYI, there was a similar thread recently on !yurop@lemm.ee
“don’t care taste good”
I hope you don’t live in China. Check out gutter oil.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I avoid them if at all possible, including olive oil because it’s often mixed with seed oils.
If I’m eating at a restaurant I can’t control it and roll the dice, but at home I cook using tallow, lard, butter
My personal philosophy is if I can’t make it myself, at least once, I don’t want to eat it. So no processed foods at all. I’ve churned butter, I’ve rendered lard, but I can’t make seed oils at home.
Why can’t you make seed oils at home?
Why can’t you make seed oils at home?
Mix every 1/4 cup (59 g) of sesame seeds with 1 cup (237 mL) of oil. Pour your sesame seeds inside a medium or large pot. Then, pour in a cooking oil of your choice, based on the amount of sesame seeds you are using.
Olive oil can be made at home by crushing fresh olives, similar to peanut oil, and sunflower oil, and probably several other plant oils I haven’t looked up.
I think olive oil is really good, but buying it is nearly impossible. The economic interest is too attractive and lots of the “olive oil” supply is blended with the industrial oils
PS it’s not civil to downvote my grand parent comment then try to have a discussion down thread. It makes Lemmy a hostile place and discourages real interactions.
He’s not the one downvoting your irrational fears - I am though.
Downvotes exist to suppress dumb fuck takes like “seed oil unnatural”
He can be civil all he wants I’ll just tell you it’s idiotic and you’re listening to morons.
The topic of this post was personal rankings, which I’ve provided. Live whatever way you want to. And yes, he was down voting in addition to yourself. Votes are public information
Well yeah, but the oils separate and you can skim off the sesame oil, then filter the seed fragments out. Is it just the hassle? That’s understandable, but I’ve made butter and that’s a hassle too.
I’ve never tried it. But the recipe you link to requires cooking oil to make the flavored oil. So I still don’t know how to make it on my own.
I’m happy to try it, if I could do it without external oil
Lol, that’s fair. I suspect it could be done with an animal fat, as long as it had been heated past melting, but it’s pretty unappealing to imagine
Got any good salad dressing recipes with lard?
