I’ve been thinking a lot about oil lately. Cooking oils, baking oils, popcorn-spraying oils; it’s become a bit of an obsession for me in 2017. Before heart surgery, I gave this part of my diet only a bit of thought. It wasn’t bad, wasn’t perfect. I aimed then, and still aim today, for everything in moderation. Even that chocolate, cream-filled donut. My surgery was to replace a valve—faulty since day 1, not to clean out fat-clogged arteries from diet or genes. But, high cholesterol runs in my family and I’m feeling especially motivated to not have my chest cracked open again if diet changes can prevent it. So, oils. If you’re dairy free, you probably already use plant sterols and liquid oils instead of butter, lard, or solid margarines. Pat yourself on the back for heart health there, too. But there’s not just one oil replacement for butter. In fact, choosing oils to use in dairy-free, heart-healthy cooking leads you down a deep, deep rabbit hole. Let’s get a little sciencey and explore some oil options that offer function, taste, and food allergy/heart health. First, heart health. All oils have some good, some less good types of fats. Our body needs good fats to protect nerves, strengthen eyes and bones, maintain clotting ability and brain power, and store energy. This lovely infographic sums up oil choices and explains why unsaturated oils, tablespoon for tablespoon, are artery savers.
Second, food allergy and overall food safety. Obviously, avoid any oils made from your allergens. Also consider how heavily the oil is processed. Some users may have strong preferences about seed oil extraction methods, for example. Watch carefully for actual ingredients in generically named vegetable oils, too. These products might have a good combination of unsaturated options, but they also could mix in saturated fats at unknown proportions. Third, function: solid state, smoke point, and taste are big deciding factors here. Reserve semi-solid products, like tropical oils, for when they are most useful, like in a no-bake that would fall apart with a softer, liquid oil. As a general rule, liquid oils with high smoke points, like sesame or soybean oils, handle temperatures for stir fry and high-heat cooking better. Oils with strong tastes, like nutty avocado oil, might only be appropriate in some dishes. And the biggest decider, at least in our house until this year: taste. We have, as a family, spent lunch times in olive oil tasting stores, and we all have our favorites. No sense using an oil for health if its taste makes you cringe. Lucky for us, all olive oils have the same fat content, regardless of taste. Our all-around standards are olive oil for sauteing, for salads and popcorn, and for anything else savory; flavorless canola oil for most baking; coconut oil sparingly for no-bakes; partially hydrogenated solid plant sterols for solid creamed treats like frosting; and a surprise new winner to try, corn oil, which can be healthier than I ever imagined. But we’re breaking out. Recently I tried expeller-free avocado oil on our baked tortilla and air-popped popcorn. It’s a start. What are your favorites and why? Do you measure your fats or choose for taste alone?
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Hi, I'm Nicole. ABOUT THE BLOG An apothecary is a person or a place. Either one implies healing and relates to pharmacy in its truest sense, as a source of treatment and advice. This blog is my way of uniting my pharmacy training with my efforts to provide a healthy and safe lifestyle for my family. In true apothecary form, I research and prescribe alternative ingredients that work just right in each specific recipe, and I would like to share the results with anyone who needs help making their own family’s kitchen allergy safe and heart healthy. Categories
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I made the 2017 Top-40 Food Allergy blogs!
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