Another planet?

[johnstevens77]

A rant.
I just watched the "Tonight" program on ITV which was about dietary fats. About half a dozen people were presented with a bowl of solid coconut oil and a bowl of olive oil and asked which was the healthiest one, (or words to that effect). They all chose the coconut oil! Where does that idea come from, another planet? I thought that every one knew that coconut oil is saturated and that olive oil is unsaturated. Have they never heard of the Mediterranean diet? The Egyptians, Cypriots and Lebanese that I worked with used to dip bread in olive oil and they appeared to be in better shape than many people over here in The UK. We are only two at home and we use over a litre and a half of olive oil a month and we are not at all overweight. Apart form that, I never throw away bacon fat or dripping of any kind and our eggs and vegetables are cooked with a knob of butter and pommes sautees with lard and butter if dripping is unavailable.
PS. we also eat prodigeous amonts of dietary fibre, vegetables, nuts and seeds, maybe that is the secret of a good diet. Although the baked apples and home made raspberry ice cream tasted very nice today.
Rant over.

john

[voelkels]

FWIW, there have been a limited number of studies that tend to show “organic” coconut oil may have some health benefits (See; http://www.well-beingsecrets.com/health ... conut-oil/ for example). Of course, I am old enough to remember being told that oleo margarine was healthy and butter was unhealthy. I also remember reading an article in one of the science magazines in 1971 that said the earth was in between glacial events and we could expect the climate to cool in the coming years resulting in another ice age.

All that being said, I use mostly canola oil (See; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola ) along with some olive oil and butter for cooking. I use butter for baking (mostly just Christmas cookies) and mayonnaise as my spread on bread. I limit the amount of red meat that I cook/eat and eat a fair amount of sea food. I gave up smoking tobacco in 1980 and smoke mostly pork and salmon now a daze, me.

[swill453]

All that being said, I use mostly canola oil (See; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola )

Also known in this country as rapeseed oil of course, and is usually the cheapest vegetable oil you can get in the supermarket, e.g. https://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=254918067

You can of course pay 5x the price for "finest", "cold pressed" etc. https://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=274132044

Scott.

[Urbandreamer]

I thought that every one knew that coconut oil is saturated and that olive oil is unsaturated.

I thought that olive oil was monosaturated!

Oh well, raising your blood pressure at people who can't be bothered researching such things is not going to do you any good.

TBH, the entrire subject of oils and fats is a minefield. I say that having just bought some spray rapeseed oil for the daughter, who despite baking every day and using a significant amount of oil and fat in the baking, wants to restrict the oil that she fries in!

Oh and for those (not the OP) who don't know, rapeseed oil is also known as calola oil and contains the lowest amount of saturated fat/oil of the edible oils. I'm sure that will make a difference to the bread and butter pudding that she plans on monday using, butter and cream!

[voelkels]

One advantage of canola oil for frying is its fairly high “smoke point”, the temperature at which the oil tends to break down due to heat. Here in the N’Orleans area, peanut oil (groundnut oil for y’all across “the pond”) is used in many high-end seafood restaurants to fry their seafood. The trick to good non-greasy fried seafood (fish, oysters, etc.) it to heat the oil to a temperature of at least 375 degrees F (191 C) and to add just enough seafood that the temperature of the oil never drops more than about 25 or 20 degrees F (13.8 or 11.2 degrees C). They also have one fryer that is used only for fish, a second for potatoes (chips), another for chicken, etc. and the oil is replaced every day.

Axe-u-lee, all the eatable oils are a mixture of saturated, mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated tri-glycerides. From Wikipedia, see; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_oil for the chart around the center of the page for some average values of many oils.