Episode 33: Oils ain't Oils!! Which Oil is Best?

Episode 33: Oils ain't Oils!! Which Oil is Best?

Welcome back to The Easy Feed Podcast! In this episode, I discuss the best cooking oils to use and how to balance omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Here are the key points I cover:

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Highlights:

Introduction (00:00.00)
Choosing the Best Cooking Oils (00:29.934)
Consuming Healthy Oils: A Balance (02:53.774)
The Importance of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Avocado Oil (05:11.662)
Choosing the Right Oil for Your Kitchen (07:31.63)
Trying Different Oils on Live TV (09:48.462)
Process of Oil Refining (12:09.198)
Moderate Oils Overview (14:20.174)
Consuming Healthy Oils and Managing Canola Oil (16:48.014)
Buying Healthy Oils: A Personal Perspective (18:58.286)
Avoiding Vegetable Oil: A Health Concern (21:18.606)
Reusing Cooking Paper Towels (23:34.478)

Show notes

READ TRANSCRIPT

Show Notes

Welcome back to The Easy Feed Podcast! In this episode, I discuss the best cooking oils to use and how to balance omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Here are the key points I cover:

1. Choosing the Best Cooking Oils: We'll discuss why extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil are the top choices for your family's meals.

2. How many of the seed oils are processed which can reduce the nutritional value of oils

3. Balancing Fats for Optimal Health: Learn about the importance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and how to maintain a healthy ratio in your kids' diet.

3. Tips on avoiding highly processed vegetable oils which can be harmful for our health.

4. Incorporating Healthy Fats: Discover how to easily include healthy fats in your child's diet through everyday meals and snacks.

5. Practical Cooking Tips: Simple and effective cooking methods to preserve the nutritional value of your ingredients.

To learn more about working with me head to nourishwithkarina.com.

Learn more about my membership program, head over to: https://nourishwithkarina.com/membership

Introduction (00:00.526)
You're listening to the Easy Feed Podcast, episode number 33, Which Cooking Oil is Best? Hi there, I'm Karina Savage and with over 20 years experience feeding children, including my own, I've learnt all the secrets that busy mums need to get their children eating better and actually enjoying healthy foods. So a huge welcome to the Easy Feed Podcast.
Choosing the Best Cooking Oils (00:29.934)
It's great to have you. I hope you're really well. And I wanted to talk today about something that I was actually talking about on Channel 7 Sunrise this morning. I went in there and talked about which cooking oils are best to use in the house. So what oil do you use? What oil is best? What is healthiest? Because there are so many oils out there and it's really good to
I guess, wrap your head around the pros and the cons of the various oils because oils ain't oils. There are some better oils and there are some oils that you really want to try to be staying away from because again, you don't see these effects on your body, but you certainly feel them over time. And some oils are going to be what we call inflammatory and not as healthy. So let's dive into the various oils.
Categories or the criteria I should say that I used to determine what oil should go into what category. So we had three different categories. We had the best, we had the ones to eat in moderation, and then the worst. So the criteria that I used to categorize them into best, moderate, and worst really came down to these three things. First of all, it was to do with how processed they were.
because really at the end of the day, the more processed something is, the lower in nutrition it will be. So that was the first criteria I used. The second criteria came down to the type of fat that they contain. So some oils, lots of oils actually contain unsaturated fatty acids, which are better for your heart. Some contain saturated fatty acids and they're the ones that
are recommended to be limited because they're linked to raised cholesterol and I guess poorer heart health. So that was the second criteria that I used to decide where my oils went on what podium they went this morning was the ratio of omega -6 to omega -3 fatty acids. Historically, we had a better intake or ratio of omega -3 to 6 fatty acids.
Consuming Healthy Oils: A Balance (02:53.774)
And over the years, over the last hundred years, we've started to eat more and more Omega -6 fatty acids, which are inflammatory if they're out of ratio to Omega -3. So you don't want a really high intake of Omega -6 compared to Omega -3. So a lot of these seed oils that I talk about in the sort of the middle category are higher in Omega -6. And that's why they're not encouraged to be having, you know, tablespoons of them every day.
because it can further push your omega -6, omega -3 ratio out of whack. So you really, I think the ratio that you should be aiming for is about four omega -6 to every one omega -3, but really I think sometimes we're having, you know, 50 or a hundred omega -6 to one omega -3 and that's a concern. So that's why we want to be focusing on the oils that have a better ratio as well as healthy fats and less processed. So.
I'm going to talk you through the different groups now. Okay. Let's start with the best oils to cook with. The reason these oils are the best is they are very minimally processed. They are cold pressed, which means that they are pressed with as little extraction as possible. So there's no chemical solvents used. There's not very, very high heat.
and other extraction methods used that are often used in some of the seed oils. So with extra virgin olive oil, especially the cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, you get the best oil possible out of the olive and it's very minimally processed. So it's not heat treated because the thing is when oils are heat treated or
exposed to high temperatures with cooking, they can change and they can become more unhealthy. So at the end of the day, you want limited processing and as much as possible, keeping those temperatures below what we call their smoke point. So the smoke point is the temperature at which the oil goes from being a good oil to cook with to starting to smoke and burn food. And that's when the oil starts to lose its nutritional value.
The Importance of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Avocado Oil (05:11.662)
So the two heroes of my best group are extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil. Now with extra virgin olive oil is recommended, especially with adults to be having two tablespoons or 40 meals every single day. I think it's liquid gold. Look, I am a little biased. I grew up with an Italian nonna living with us actually for a couple of years, but my mum's side's from the North of Italy and I grew up
with Italian food and, you know, using extra virgin olive oil in large amounts in cooking. I remember when I then went on to study nutrition and, you know, we would learn all the healthy advice to give to adults, you know, through our degree. And part of that advice of what I learned back then, my, gee, this was a good 20 years ago now, I'm showing my age.
was low fat, low fat this and low fat that. And I remember coming home and saying to my mom, who, you know, basically learned to speak English until she was five, because she grew up in a Natalian household. I remember saying to her, mom, don't use so much oil, just use spray oil. And I look back now and I'm cringing because I just, the advice that we got told and got taught and
You know, that whole low fat era was just a crock, right? I mean, I think there's still some people, I mean, don't get me wrong, low saturated fats are cutting the fat off the meat, limiting things like butter and cream. Yes. But low fat per se and keeping anything that's high in fat sort of to a minimum. I disagree. If it's a healthy fat, go for your life. Healthy fats are so good for you. And so.
As a student dietician though, I learned low fat and back then it was all the rage and low fat this and low fat that and protect your heart. And as a result, everyone was having a lot more sugar, which is just as harmful. Actually, it's more harmful in a lot of respects to your blood sugar levels, to your gut health, than having healthy fats. It's like the opposite of what I say now. So it's incredible when you look back to think about what you were taught as a
Choosing the Right Oil for Your Kitchen (07:31.63)
professional and what I now preach and tell people and talk about on national television because really at the end of the day, it's about keeping it natural as close to mother nature as possible and making sure that we are not tampering with her food and the less tampering the better, which is why all the cold pressed oils that I had on the best category stand today, I had.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which is cold pressed. I had Olive Oil, which is cold pressed. And then other great options are flaxseed oil. Now flaxseed oil is better for dressings rather than to fry with. And then you've got walnut oil. Sesame oil is another one in there. Safflower oil is quite a good one as well. But I honestly think as an all -rounder, an amazing oil to use daily is Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
And the reason I recommend Australian extra virgin olive oil is because when you're buying Australian extra virgin olive oil, it's likely to be fresher. European olive oil, the chances are, is been on a boat for at least a couple of months. And I'd rather support local Australian growers anyway, but generally I believe that the Australian extra virgin olive oil will probably be fresher. So.
If you can get the extra virgin, that's going to be better than just getting the olive oil. Because if you just buy olive oil, it's going to be more highly processed. It's still going to be very nutritious. It's still going to have antioxidants in it, but it will be more processed than your extra virgin olive oil. So Australian extra virgin olive oil gets the number one place on the podium, but right next to avocado oil because avocado oil is highly nutritious.
And it does have a higher smoking point and so it's good for frying in. So it's actually quite funny. Today on the show, there's a lot of laughter actually in the segment. And I brought in some bread and cause my beautiful neighbor, she works in a bakery and she brings us these beautiful fresh rolls. And I thought I'll take some bread in. I actually brought in some sourdough as well to mix it up, but I took in some yummy fresh rolls. And so we chopped up some of the rolls and had them next to the
Trying Different Oils on Live TV (09:48.462)
text to the oils to try some of the oils and I had avocado oil and flaxseed oil to try. And the hilarious thing was they'd just done a segment, I don't know, sometime in the past week, it must have been about the benefits of the ketogenic diet. And so they're all like keto, keto, and so they didn't eat the bread. So he's taken this small bowl of, I tipped some of the oils into little glass bowls just to show for the display. And he's taken this.
small bowl of avocado oil because he wanted to see what it was like. And he scalded this little jar of avocado oil and it was a massive swig actually of like a big gulp of, it would have been I'd say a good 40 mls of this avocado oil on live TV. It was quite funny actually. I'll try and put the segment up on my website because
Yeah, there was a lot of laughter. And then he made Nat, who's the co -host, try one of the middle category oils, which is rice bran oil. And again, they didn't use the bread. I'm like, use the bread. It's going to be so much faster if you use the bread. And she's like drinking this rice bran oil directly from this little bowl. And I'm like, that's disgusting. And she thought it was disgusting, but it was pretty funny actually. So yeah, hopefully they're feeling okay right now.
Because I can't say I'd be liking to scub. I'd be wanting to scub that oil. I should say, my goodness. I think I've got Monday artists a little bit tired today. Anyway, back to the best podium. So we had avocado oil, extra virgin olive oil, flaxseed oil, walnut oil. Look, you can get lots and lots and lots of different oils now, but I think as a good all -rounder.
The Australian extra virgin olive oil wins there. And I think it is more affordable too. I think avocado oil is more expensive, but I think you can get avocado oil that's more highly processed as well. So go the cold pressed if you can. So that was the, the best category. And then the moderate category, they really got moved into the moderate category for two reasons. Number one, well, actually three reasons. Number one, they were more highly processed. So.
Process of Oil Refining (12:09.198)
If the seed had to undergo more processing, they had to be heated at a higher temperature to get the oil extracted out of the seed. If they had to use chemical solvents as part of that extraction process or when they're degummed, they sometimes need to add things into it or they're sometimes bleached when they're filtering it, they're sometimes deodorized as well.
Because sometimes when you're producing oil, it can actually smell quite often. So they add things back into deodoriser. So there's all these processes in this physical refining of the oil that we don't even know about, but it can actually reduce the nutritional value of these oils. It's actually quite incredible when you look into how they process olive oil. And if you just do like a quick search.
I found a nice little flow chart of raw seed oil and the process that it goes through. So for example, maybe you could say a sunflower seed oil, they get the sunflower seeds, then they have to extract the oil. So they de -gum it and as part of that de -gumming process, they use water, phosphoric acid, citric acid.
Then they have to go through a neutralization process, a winterization process where they split it, they use sulfuric acid there, they use soap stock, then they've washed it, then they have to bleach it and filter it and they use a bleaching agent there and then they use other, I think, sorbents they're called. Then it goes through a deodorization process and it's steamed.
And then it goes through a brightening process and then ready for storage. And they use nitrogen in that stage as well. So it's incredible. The whole refining process that occurs. And we don't even often, well, I know I don't think about it. If I was to pick up a jar of oil or a container of oil and use it like a sunflower seed oil or something like that, I actually wouldn't even
Moderate Oils Overview (14:20.174)
think about all of these other agents that have been used in the production of this oil. So it's incredible when you actually investigate all of the different things that are used to create the oil. Okay. So in that moderate group that has more processed vegetable oils, we have rice bran oil, we have sunflower oil, we have peanut oil, we have grape seed oil.
And we also have coconut oil. Now coconut oil is a little controversial because coconut oil is spruced as being a very healthy fat. And whilst it can be cold pressed or very minimally processed, which is a good thing, like big tick there, it does contain a lot of saturated fat. And that's why it ended up on that moderate podium today. I initially had it in the worst and I was like, no, it's actually not.
nearly as bad as the other oils that were in the worst category. So I was like, it actually deserves to be in the middle. Some people would put it on the best and some people would put it on the worst. And I was like, no, let's put it in the middle because number one, it is still a very high content of saturated fat, but it is often minimally processed. That is a hard word to say three times, even once. I'm not even going to try and say it three times, but that's the reason the coconut oil was in the middle because
It is a high saturated fat product and the jury is still out on whether that is going to negatively impact your health long -term. So look, in my membership, my members use some recipes that contain coconut oil, only a couple of them, but my black bean brownie especially really lent itself to needing coconut oil. But most of my recipes that require oil would be using extra virgin olive oil.
Yeah, extra coconut oil can have its place, but at the end of the day, these moderate oils are not oils that you can never have. They're just oils that I would use in moderation. They're not oils that I would use in cooking every day. So in that moderate category, again, it would be rice bran oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil, grape seed oil, coconut oil. And it's because they are a bit more processed, but also because they do have more omega -6.
Consuming Healthy Oils and Managing Canola Oil (16:48.014)
compared to omega -3. And so too much of those oils will drive that imbalance of too much omega -6 compared to omega -3 because we want that ratio to be pulled back down to ideally 4 to 1, 4 omega -6 to 1 omega -3, and too much of these high omega -6s will push that ratio out of whack further, which increases the risk of inflammation. So that's why we have these in more moderation.
Canola oil is a very controversial oil as well. And whilst it is still a relatively healthy fat, it is very highly processed and also a lot of canola is genetically modified. So
Even though the jury is a little out and you'll definitely, if you Google canola oil, you could spend days looking into canola oil and looking at all the different viewpoints on canola oil. But at the end of the day, it's definitely not one of the best options. So I would just put it in that moderate category again. So I would definitely not use canola oil instead of extra virgin olive oil. I would be using extra virgin olive oil first. I would buy a three litre big container and I would.
keep it in the pantry in the dark, because that's the best way to do it. Because you want, you don't want oil to be in light, in glass containers in light, because it goes off more quickly and the nutrition is reduced, the nutrients suffer. So keeping them in a container in the dark is the best. And so if your oil is in a glass container, like a glass bottle, just keeping it in the pantry in a dark place is recommended. Don't keep it on the shelf or don't keep it on the kitchen bench.
in full light. So what I do, what I've been doing lately, because oil has gone crazy in the prices lately, I think it's due to supply some issues overseas, but literally it's doubled lately. So, I mean, I like to buy it in bigger quantities anyway, because I love using it daily. But what I've done is I buy like a three kilogram big tin container, and then I decant it out into a smaller
Buying Healthy Oils: A Personal Perspective (18:58.286)
glass bottle, which I then use daily because it's just easier than pulling out this giant, I used to do it, pull out this giant three kilo thing and tip it in, but then it's so big and it glugs out and then you get oil splattering everywhere and it's messy. So I now decant into smaller glass jars. And look, you know, if the price of the jars is comparable to buying it in bulk, which is not usually, so it's probably better to buy in bulk, but then just buy the glass jars and keep them in the pantry where it's dark. But otherwise, yeah.
If it's more affordable and you've got the space for it, then buying a big tin and then just decanting into the smaller glass jar, or bottle I should say, is recommended. That's what I would do. What I do do. So anyway, I got back onto extra virgin olive oil again. I am a little bit crazy about it. Can't tell, can you? Anyway, let's move on now to the worst. Now the worst.
is in the worst because they are so highly processed, they can actually have negative health impacts. So the ones that fit into the worst category aren't so easy to buy aside from vegetable oil. So vegetable oil is the one that you can very, you could go to your local supermarket now, pretty much any supermarket you can go to will definitely have just vegetable oil. So it's written as vegetable oil and it's a combination of different oils.
that it's very highly processed. Soybean oil, corn oil, can't really buy corn oil easy, can't buy palm oil easily because I tried, we tried to get some corn oil and palm oil and soybean oil for the segment today, I couldn't get it. So not as easy to buy, which is probably a good thing, but it's used often in processed convenience junk foods.
Palm oil is not good for the environment anyway, it's a disaster for deforestation, for orangutans, unless it's sustainable palm oil. But yeah, I really hate buying anything that's got palm oil in it because I worry about the environment and the impact on animals. But it's also not good for your health either and it's high in saturated fat and again, highly processed. So I would stay away from anything that's soybean oil, corn oil.
Avoiding Vegetable Oil: A Health Concern (21:18.606)
Vegetable oil is the big one. So if you're in the supermarket and you're looking at what oil to buy, do not pick up the vegetable oil. It's highly processed and move towards, you know, which one. I'm not even going to say it again. Otherwise, I'm going to blow up the podcast system saying one word too many times. They don't really. But anyway, you know what I mean. So let's move away from vegetable oil.
The thing is too, if you're cooking with vegetable oil at really high temperature, what happens is with high temperatures and poorer quality processed oils is they release free radicals and free radicals are damaging to our body. They're damaging to our health. So that's another problem with these things. It's not only that the oils are really highly processed, but then when they are made into foods and heated again to high temperatures, when making foods, when
frying foods, it's again potentially causing damage. So we want to avoid those more highly processed poorer quality oils and especially those ones that are higher in saturated fat as well, because there is evidence to suggest that high saturated fat diets raise LDL cholesterol, which is the bad cholesterol. And we know that that cholesterol
can increase deposits in the arteries and increase the risk of high blood pressure and other heart related problems. So after we went through the taste testing of oils, and I told you they were lucky not to get any on their clothes today. After we went through the taste testing and we'd gone through the best and the moderate and the worst, we then talked about how to get rid of oil and it was said olive oil again then. So how do we get rid of the oil?
If the oil's got lots of bits in it and you've already heated it to reasonably high temperatures and you're like, okay, I'm not reusing this, then wait for it to cool, pop it in a bag and then pop it in the bin. Do not put it in your sink because when it cools and mixes with water, it then becomes a bit thicker and it can clog drains and it's not good for the environment either. So don't pour oil down the sink. Even with suds and things like that, try not to pour it down the sink. Just wait for it to cool.
Reusing Cooking Paper Towels (23:34.478)
What I will often do is if we've used paper towels in cooking or at the table, I'll get all the used paper towels and I'll just literally pop them in the fry pan. I'll try and tip a bit of it out into the bin and then I'll pop the rest of the paper towels as much as possible in the fry pan to soak up the oil. And then I use that to sort of mop it out and scoop it out and tip the oil out. You obviously have to wait for it to cool a bit so it doesn't burn your hand. And then yeah, get rid of the oil into the bin and then you can clean your pan.
If you used a lot of oil and you really want to keep it and it's looking, you know, still good, then what I would do is strain it. And then once it's cool, pop it in a glass jar and pop it in the fridge. But I would use it within a week or so because you don't want it to be sitting in there. And every time you open the fridge, the light goes on and it is more likely to go off more quickly too, because it's already been used. If you've got a decent amount and you know, you're frying things once a week or you know, you can fry things more often, especially if it's in the good quality oil.
But yeah, absolutely can reuse it, but if it's only a smaller amount, then just chuck it out, but make sure you pop it in the bin, not in the sink. So my goal this week is to experiment a bit more with avocado oil. I'm going to have a play with it and I can let you know how I go. I might even try and create a recipe with it. I also want to play around a bit more with flaxseed oil because even though you don't fry with that, it's really nutritious. It's a really good.
oil to use and I think it's good for salad dressings and things like that. So yeah, I'll play around with the avocado oil first and then have a play with the flaxseed oil. But tonight I will be using my Australian extra virgin olive oil 100 % of the way. And as I said, for adults it's recommended to have 40 mils a day, so two tablespoons, but really use it as much as you want because it's good for you. It's never going to be.
a heart health concern, it's not going to raise cholesterol, it's going to be good for you. If you were an adult and you were worried about your health and maybe shifting a few kilos, I wouldn't be focusing on the extra virgin olive oil that you're using, I would be focusing on the carbohydrates and other foods that you're having first because the oils are really good for you. But we're here to talk about kids, so I'm not going to talk about that too much, maybe I'll do a separate segment on nourishing mums.
Well, I sort of did that last week, but that was more about mental health for mums. But yeah, look, please reach out to me. If you've got questions, I love to answer them. So reach out to me. Maybe I'll do some more food reviews on oils moving forwards because you know, it's something that we use all the time and it's just good to be educated to know what better options there are, especially for those that you are using, you know, every night with cooking because let's be.
Honest, we've got to cook every single night. Well, you know, most of the nights we've got cheat nights here and there, right? Take away nights. But yeah, we do have to cook with them a lot. So it's good to know which ones to use. I will wrap it up there. I hope you have a great week. Please leave me a review. Please get in touch. Love to hear from you and I will chat to you soon. Bye for now.