To find the debate around seed oils confusing?

I would never use extra virgin olive oil for anything that would necessitate heating it up. (a) The smoking point is too low. (b) It would be extremely expensive. (c) The flavour would not be detectable, so why bother? I keep it for salads and use with bread.

I used to use blended olive in any dish where the oil gets heated, e.g. frying onions for a soup or stew, roasting potatoes or other vegetables, but it's extremely expensive now. I followed a recommendation here and bought a huge container of cold pressed rapeseed oil and I'm very pleased with it. It seems to have a good smoke point and we haven't noticed any change in taste or anything else.

Very occasionally I use butter in place of oil for frying, but rarely, because it burns so easily. I do use butter to make bechamel sauce and in baking. We also put a knob of butter on boiled potatoes or pasta when just cooked and drained, and I'd add it to mashed potatoes. Lovely flavour.

My mother, who is nearly 92, uses lard for stews and so on. Her food is extremely tasty, but I won't be following suit in my kitchen.

Never deep fry, so don't have to worry about that!

A dietician suggested Rapeseed oil for cooking at a talk she gave on healthy eating.
Why do you think Sunflower oil is better @BrigadierEtienneGerard ?

Use sunflower oil to cook. Never cook with olive oil, only use that cold. Use rapeseed oil when we can't get sunflower oil.

Use suet for puddings.

Can see no reason to change.

@RespondLater DH what a helpful post 👏

@WitchyBits thank you, interesting, the recipe was American actually. Will continue to avoid!

It's used HEAVILY in America and as we know what starts there tends to filter over here. Our bodies are not designed to recognise it as an ingredient and so if you say, fancy a piece of cake, then if you eat cake with sugar your brain will often turn off the craving as it's satisfied. But with corn syrup it just keeps on going and going as it goes under the satiety radar. This is the same some with artificial sugar/sweeteners. And even worse our bodies can mistake them for actual glucose and produce an insulin response that's not needed. Petite think zero drinks help with avoiding diabetes etc but artificial sweeteners are actually really bad for kidneys as well. These days I tend to prefer cold brewed fruit tea and it actually carbonates really well for that fizzy craving

I had been avoiding seed oils but the recent Zoe episode has made me rethink this and I’m happy to reintroduce them for high temp cooking.

I think corn syrup can be subbed with pure maple? It's not an ingredient I've needed to use before, but a recent gelato recipe called for it, I googled and it said I could swap with maple syrup which I did and was lovely. Tbh it probably didn't need any syrup anyway. Not sure what corn syrup is regularly used in?

It's really interesting when you get into it. I can get lost doing deep dives all day long. For me and my family I look at what works we have eaten a hidden years ago? Five hundred years ago? I make my own sourdough bread. I use butter and lard. We eat vegetables and meat. The main processed food we eat are sausages and bacon , burgers etc and I buy them from a butchers. I try to make my own cakes and biscuits every week and and have even grown my own mushrooms, salad veg etc.

I use olive oil and British cold-pressed rapeseed that comes in glass - no plastic is a plus.

Hmm interesting, I buy olive oil in a large 2L tin and pour it into an old plastic olive oil bottle for easy pouring, I wonder if I should buy a glass bottle for it.

Corn oil/corn syrup etc is linked to all sorts of issues. I read a study that said with corn our brains aren't adapted enough to register a "fullness" from consuming it. Hence the massive obesity issue with America and their over reliance on corn syrup as a sweetener.

Thank you for explaining this.

I only cook with animal fat as I've read about oxidation and high smoke points etc. I refuse to listen to the "dieticians" that claim animal fat is the enemy and causes heart diseases when the industrialisation of our food has only been around for a tiny amount of time and it's the exact same time we experienced an explosion of obesity, diabetes etc.

Another question, what about groundnut oil? I think it is peanut oil and good to use (flavour wise) as it's very neutral.

What about corn oil? Is that better than sunflower etc?

I agree it’s confusing so I just use olive oil for everything!

I take a view that some animal fats like lard/butter in moderation, are not the end of the world when part of an overall healthy diet with plenty of veg, lean protein, fibre etc. humans have been consuming them for years and I'd rather eat a little butter than something heavily processed.

We don't fry a lot of things & never deep fat fry. We have roast potatoes done in a little lard once a week & have relatively small servings. The meal will always include 3 green veg eg kale, broccoli, asparagus, green beans, and swede or carrot

In the week we eat a lot of salad and soup at lunch

I use olive oil and British cold-pressed rapeseed that comes in glass - no plastic is a plus.

So I use olive oil for everything now (sometimes butter if that's nicer like for onions) but as we go into roast season I'm thinking olive oil taste might be a little too much, would goose fat be the best option for roast potatoes? I'm not worried about fat content perse I know it'll be bad in that regard, but trying to stick to real food.

That’s interesting. I read some time ago about sugar companies hoodwinking people (Nixon’s government from memory and possibly involving bribes????) into placing the blame on fats for obesity. Link here to another article about it - lots of it behind a subscription but it leads in with the gist of it.

www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html

I agree. Lots of conflicting information from “experts” including that “calories in/calories out” is the key to weightloss. I’m now on the low carb/low sugar/high fat/moderate protein way of thinking and it’s working for me. I once read “fat makes you full, sugar makes you fat” and that is certainly the case with me. Olive oil and coconut oil for me.

Surely it depends what you are trying to achieve. I have been told that I am prone to high cholesterol, exacerbated by an underactive thyroid. So that means I am going to avoid lard, suet, butter completely - or at least as much as humanly possible and good alternatives are sunflower oil or vegetable oil.

If you are trying to reduce UPF and have no cholesterol issues then you might choose differently.

I made an effort to avoid seed oils (v. difficult because they are in everything) for a few months and then when I got too busy to cook everything from scratch reintroduced them, and when I ate something with a high seed oil content it gave me a stomach ache, as if my body was no longer used to them and reacting badly

based off this experience I try to avoid them as much as possible.

I think I’ll take the chance with my rapeseed. I’m not an olive oil fan and don’t like using too much dairy so butter is out of the equation. Life’s too short!

@CherryValley5 that's what I've read but I'm not clued up in the area.