How to Choose the Best Cooking Oil in Rock Hill SC

Cooking healthy in Rock Hill SC is important to the team at Celanese Chiropractic Health & Performance. Choosing variety in your cooking oils will allow you to get a wider range of healthy fats; but not all oils are created equal. From refined soybean and corn oils that seem to be in every manufactured food, to exotic oils like extra virgin avocado and cold pressed coconut oils. Some oils can handle the heat, and some can't.

How to Choose the Best Cooking Oil in Rock Hill SC

When oil burns, it rapidly breaks down and produces potentially carcinogenic compounds. It's important to match the right oil with the cooking method you intend to use.

If you plan to do stir frying, searing, high-heat baking or roasting, then it is important to choose a cooking oil that can withstand the high heat without breaking down quickly. Knowing the smoke point of your oil is useful. An oil's smoke point is the temperature at which it will start to smoke and break down, losing its nutritional benefits, creating harmful compounds and giving food an unpleasant taste. Oils with high smoke points, such as peanut, sesame, coconut, and avocado are good for high-heat frying and stir-frying. Olive, canola and grapeseed oils have moderately high smoke points, making them good for sautéing over medium-high heat.

Oils with low smoke points, such as flaxseed and walnut, are best used for steaming, blanching, stewing in slow cooker, cold dishes, salad dressings and dips.

Consider How the Oil is Extracted

Refined vegetable oils like soybean and corn oils have high smoke points but are usually extracted using toxic chemical solvents to pull out more oil from the crops. Trace amounts of chemical residue are inevitably left in the oil, even though steps have been taken to remove them. While short term ingestion of a small amount of the chemical is unlikely to cause any problems in healthy individuals, long term ingestion is unknown. Opt for food grade oils that have been extracted 'cold-pressed' or 'expeller-pressed'. However, this extraction gives lower yields, and oils that are extracted using this method usually cost more.

Freshness is Important

Not only do you get shortchanged in terms of quality and nutrition when you buy stale oil, you could also be putting your health in jeopardy when you consume rancid oil regularly. No matter how good an oil is supposed to be, once it has gone bad, it is dangerous to the body and should never be consumed. Here are some tips on how to tell how fresh an oil is:

• Harvest or production date: Choose a bottle of oil that is as close to the harvest/production date as possible. The longer the oil stays on the shelf; the more nutrition values it will lose. Additionally, you should get only the amount of oil that you can use up within half a year.
• Color of the container: The deterioration of oil speeds up when it is exposed to light. Hence, oil that is stored in a clear, transparent bottle or container should be avoided. Instead, get one that is kept in a dark amber/green glass bottle. To save cost, some companies swap glass bottles with plastic containers, and although plastic does not allow light to pass through, the plastic may be slowly dissolved by the oil it contains, especially over a long period of time.
• Nitrogen seal: Oxygen is another enemy of oil. To slow down rancidification, some manufacturers remove air from the container and replace it with nitrogen. Nitrogen doesn't react with oil the way oxygen does, so the oil stays fresher longer. But once the container is opened, the oil is no longer protected and will start to break down. Try to use up your cooking oil as quickly as you can.
• Taste test: If you detect a distinctive rancid smell or taste from the oil you bought, you should go back and ask for a replacement or refund. Fresh extra virgin olive oil should have a strong fruity smell and sometimes a grassy taste that remind you of olives.
• Storage temperature: The higher the temperature, the faster the oil will go rancid. Don't store cooking oil near the stove. The high heat from the stove can shorten the lifespan of your oil and diminish whatever goodness it contains. A better place to store it is in the refrigerator or in a cool, dark place such as a pantry cupboard to prolong shelf life.