oil

[justine]

Hello,

Since the forum is a little quiet right now I thought I would ask a quick question. What type of oil do you use in your cooking/frying, salads, dipping ect? Do you insist on a particular oil and why? Do you have any recent research on a particular oil that you find interesting? Which oil do you prefer?

I have been using crap oil :eyeroll: and would like to change to something that will benefit my family healthwise. There is sooo much to choose from I am a little lost.

Any advice would be gratefully recieved:D

Many thanks.
Justine

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

I use olive oil for salads. I don't fry or cook with oil, and I don't dip. We have an olive orchard nearby, and their old tastes fantastic, so that's my main reason. I support local business when possible.

Sometimes I use walnut or macadamia oil for salads for a change.

[Serephina]

I mostly use olive oil and sometimes butter or ghee depending what I have to hand. I'm too lazy to bother with deep frying – too much wastage and cleaning up! I also use coconut oil if I'm cooking something like a stir fry or curry where the oil will complement the other flavours.

Apparently goose fat makes the best roast potatoes so if I'm keen to try that if I ever come across any.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Duck fat is as good too. first find a fat duck :D

[Seaweed]

I got a couple of wild ducks in the freezer so I need to check how fat they are. I think autumn is the best time to get fatty game birds. I am one of these people who likes mutton bird too.

I put extra virgin cold pressed olive oil on salads. I cook with butter, tallow or lard. Occasionally I will have ghee but it is something I have to make myself. If I can get deodourised coconut oil, I bake with it if I need to make something dairy free. The still odourised coconut oil, I try to eat if I am sick but it makes me feel very nauseous. I can cope with eating lamb liver fried in it but anything else is not that appealing. I never use any other vege oil.

[ema-adama]

I also use olive oil in salad dressing. Oh, I use olive oil if I am making coucous, added in at the end, so it is not cooked.
If I am baking I use butter or coconut oil as these fats are more stable when heated. I love ghee for curries and shakshuka (a kind of tomatoe/pepper sauce with eggs that are poached in the sauce).

YUM!

[Japonica]

Same as above. Olive oil for salads, dips, hummus...whatever.

Butter, coconut oil for frying, baking. I don't deep fry anything though...

My beef since we moved to Australia is (mystery) vegetable oil everywhere...like why do raisins NEED to be coated in oil? And there seems to be canola oil in everything. It just keeps me in the kitchen more often...

[magical1]

On a Friday I always do crumbed fish for the boys... I use grapeseed oil. It's apparenlty stable though I have no studies to back that up it's just what I have been told. I cook the chips in the oven with Olive Oil. For roasts I use olive oil too.

My parents have a second home in Martinborough and we harvest olives and take them to the press every year. That is special oil so I use that for dressings etc. When that runs out I buy olive oil

I use coconut oil heaps too just like butter on toast or I just add a dollop into a curry etc

I eat butter as well.

Seaweed... someone came around to my house with a huge jar of coconut oil the other day which was making her feel sick. It was more of a brand thing for her than the deodersised issue. I was fine with it. I wonder if it is a "die off" thing that causes the nausea? being anti fungal, anti viral? Maybe some brands are stronger in the Lauric acid? Or that the deodersised variety kills some of the active ingredient... Just a thought.

I avoid Canola and Soy at all costs. There is plenty of information on this all over the net so I won't bore you with the gory details, you're all probably well aware of this.

[Seaweed]

I don't think it is the deodourised bit that makes me sick. More that I can eat it in qty as it does not taste so foul. I am getting better at it. I have read it is die off of some kind but it's been something like just over a week & I have noticed no diff in anything else within myself. Well other than I had a cold sore threatening to pop up & I had run out of zinc & the coconut oil seems to have fixed the problem in my very unscientific opinion.

[gilima]

I use olive oil for salads and some cooking and frying and and I have used grapeseed oil too, when I can find it. butter for making eggs in the morning. Butter, Coconut oil or palm oil/shortning for baking and the refined one (no odor or taste) is also good for frying and cooking. When I have chicken fat I use that for some dishes, it really adds flavor but I need to make it and I don't always have on hand.

[deesalie]

Mostly olive oil. We're in an olive growing region so we have lots of local produce to pick from. Occassionally we use sesame oil, coconut oil, macadamia oil or walnut oil for salad dressings or to splash on a stir fry. If I run out of oil I use organic butter.

It's very rare that we deep fry so I don't really keep anything on hand for that.

[Japonica]

I use olive oil for salads and some cooking and frying and and I have used grapeseed oil too, when I can find it. butter for making eggs in the morning. Butter, Coconut oil or palm oil/shortning for baking and the refined one (no odor or taste) is also good for frying and cooking. When I have chicken fat I use that for some dishes, it really adds flavor but I need to make it and I don't always have on hand.

My dad's cousin, who is 82 and fit as can be makes his own lard...:D He uses it for his frying and baking.

[justine]

Thankyou so much for all your replies. I have alot to go on now. It's so nice to be able to throw a question in and hear all the different answers. Thanks for taking the time to give your opinions.

[RandomName]

I use coconut oil for most cooking and baking. (If we weren't dairy-free I'd use grass-fed butter too.)

I sometimes use flax oil on salad or to fatten up hummus. Not sure if that's healthy though.

Dh prefers olive oil for salad, so if we're sharing the vinaigrette I make it with that. He also sometimes cooks with olive oil (I avoid doing that because I read that it has unhealthy changes at a fairly low temp, but if he's cooking I just eat it). I'll sometimes stir olive oil into a tomato sauce when it's done cooking to fatten it up a bit, and I have a couple of cake/bread recipes which call for olive oil.

On bread, I usually use Earth Balance Soy Free margarine. It tastes fine, but from a nutritional standpoint it's a cruddy choice. Hopefully we'll be able to use butter instead down the road. Oil on bread just doesn't taste right to me yet. I also use this margarine in the occasional baking where coconut oil won't work.