Which Are the Healthiest Cooking Oils?

I learned a lesson today about the healthiest cooking oils, thanks to a helpful comment from a visitor to this site.

A fellow named Winn Etzenhouser pointed out that some types of vegetable oils are actually very healthy.

Previously I was cooking everything in olive oil because I'd heard of the heart-healthy benefits of olive oil.

So I did some research.

It turns out some vegetable oils are healthy, while others are really bad for you. If you want to cut bad fat out of your diet, never cook with the bad veggie oils.

Put your healthy cooking oils in antique glass bottles
for display. It's beautiful and practical.

Which are bad? The bad vegetable oils are those that contains highly processed polyunsaturated or hydrogenated oil. I'll explain what that means below.

The tricky thing is that many of the oils labeled as "Vegetable Oil" at the grocery store are not the healthy vegetable oils. You need to look for the good ones!

For example, it's very common for companies to put highly processed soybean oil (a polyunsaturated oil) in their formula then label the bottle "Vegetable Oil". Yes, I know, soybeans are vegetables, but the way the oil is chemically processed creates oxidation and free radicals in the oil.

You may have heard of free radicals. Free radicals hurt your health because they cause inflammation (irritation) in the cells of your body. This can eventually lead to degenerative diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.

What you need to do, then, is always read the label. If the ingredients include the words "polyunsaturated soybean oil" or "hydrogenated" (which means it contains trans-fat, the absolute worst type of fat), then move on.

List of the Healthiest Cooking Oils

So which cooking oils are the best for you? According to The Diet Channel, the healthiest oils include:

• Canola Oil

• Grapeseed Oil

• Flaxseed Oil

• Olive Oil (my fav)

• Sunflower Oil

And if you want healthy plus an unusual flavor, you can try these:

• Avocado Oil

• Peanut Oil

• Sesame Oil

• Almond, Hazelnut, Macadamia Nut Oil

• Pumpkin Seed Oil

• Walnut Oil

So, a simple fat loss tip: Next time you are at the grocery, pick up a couple bottles of the healthiest cooking oils listed above. After experimenting a bit, decide which are your favorites and only cook with those from now on.

Stay away from the cheaper generic "Vegetable Oil" products that despite the healthy sounding name are actually really bad for you.

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