POZ Community Forums
Meds, Mind, Body & Benefits => Nutrition & HIV => Topic started by: bear60 on December 24, 2006, 11:36:59 am
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Hi
As some of you already know, my partner and I cook as healthy as possible. He has a lot of dietary "restrictions" due to his lipodystrophy. Primarily he is eating a low carbohydrate diet. The cooking oil he uses is supposed to be one of those good oils...I forget what they are called. Anyway, he chose Canola Oil and I find it disgusting. Anything cooked in it tastes like "fish". Its awful...gag. We are now trying a pure vegetable oil. Does anyone have any suggestions or comments about cooking oil.
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My personal preference is olive oil. This link may give you some good info bear :
http://www.healthcastle.com/cooking-oils.shtml
Ray
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Ray
Do you use olive oil for ALL your cooking oil needs. If so do you use the SAME kind of olive oil for making salad dressing and for frying foods?
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Bear60, there are quite few different olive oils that are used for different culinary purposes.
Extra virgin oil is the first pressing without any chemicals or heat used during the extraction process. There are quite a few different types/varieties of olives as well, and some have a less pronounced 'olive' taste and are usually more golden in color. There are some oils that are green and have 'grassy' or 'peppery' taste, and that taste usually disappears or mutates in higher temperature cooking processes, like frying, they're also typically more expensive, and most people use the more 'flavorful' and expensive oils for 'finishing' or adding a flavor to foods. Also, the beneficial oleic acids in olive oils break down during high temperature cooking, so frying would take some of the healthful zing out of choosing and using olive oil. There is even a difference in the taste of olive oils from the same tree and same pressing technique and timing from year to year, so it's like wine in that respect. The artisan olive oils can be pricey.
Here in California, at most Farmer's Markets there's always several stands of olive growers selling their olive oils, it's kinda fun talking with them and tasting their selections before buying.
This is going to sound really 'California,' but a friend has a little olive oil press and we make a few bottles of oil from his tree each year. It's really good, and the unidentified variety, probably 'Savillano,' produces very pungent and green oil when we pick the olives while still green, then a deeper golden oil drips out of the press when we wait a few weeks and press the black olives. We always have a big crusty loaf of bread to tear apart and catch the drops as they s-l-o-w-l-y emerge.
Good luck with adding olive oils to your diet!
Darin
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Ray
Do you use olive oil for ALL your cooking oil needs. If so do you use the SAME kind of olive oil for making salad dressing and for frying foods?
Hello Bear,
Just to add to what Darin has mentioned, I do very little frying these days. Mostly baking or using the rotiseirie.
As far as salad dressings go. Here's a few good recipe's :
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search?q=olive+oil+dressing
Although I will cheat on occassion with the vegetable oil....
Ray
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I use extra virgin olive oil for everything. I don't touch any others.
I buy my oil off a local guy in my village, who produces his own.
Melia 8)
(whose gardens are abundant with fabulous olive groves!)
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Hello Melia, I'm enjoying your comment that you buy your oil off a local guy in your village. Le Midi? I'm laughing because the 'village' where my local guys produce olive oil is San Francisco, and my friend's tree is an ancient (remember I'm in a relative youthful San Francisco!) 100 year old specimen growing in his back garden in the Castro District, a couple of blocks from 18th Street and Castro -- that's MY village. We 'cured' olives only once from his tree, the whole process took several months and the results weren't that spectacular, so it's just the oil now, and twigs and branches for grilling.
Darin
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As you might know, Spain is one of the first producers of olive oil. Most of the Italian olive oil is bought to Spanish producers and bottled in Italy with an olive branch inside each bottle to increase the price.
For cooking we use refined olive oil with an acidity of 0.4 degrees. For salads, Extra Virgin Olive Oil of 1 degree is preferred.
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SFscruff...sounds wonderful. I have never had Freshly pressed olive oil.
Thank you JRE, Iggy, blondbeauty,Melia, et al.
Melia...send me some olive oil.?
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I have not noticed a fishy taste with Canola Oil and I hate fish! I actually use Canola and Olive Oil a lot and stay away from Veg Oil.....
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I'd ditch the Canola oil. If you are buying from a supermarket, it will have been extracted using hexane and then refined. Any beneficial properties will have been lost in the process.
Olive oil is the 'queen' of oils, but you must only use extra virgin (from the first cold pressings) or virgin (the second cold pressings). It has a high smoke point (about 200 Celsius from memory), so you can generally fry and bake with it too. Once an oil reaches its smoke point, you run the risk of trans fats being created.
Another good oil is flax (or linseed) oil, all good fats but a lower smoke point (i think around 110 celsius) than olive oil.
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olive oil is the best for sauces and such. i'd use peanut oil or a sunflower oil for frying.
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http://www.fatfreekitchen.com/cholesterol/cookingoil.html
how about almond oil?
sesame, peanut or walnut, for salads
http://www.ivillage.co.uk/dietandfitness/nutrition/fooddiet/articles/0,9544,252_160180,00.html
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Im pretty big on both Olive and canola oils, I have noticed the 'Fishy ' taste & odor you mentioned with some brands, you may want to try another, ideally canola oil has little or no flavor or odor even when heated. and olive oil is a bit pricey for things like deep frying.
Once we found an olive oil we liked, it all but replaced butter for cooking, and salad dressings luckily its available Sams Club because we use about a pint a week, not including the 'really high grade stuff' for salads and pasta, and its had a noticeable effect on my 'Good Cholesterol' too.
also, when you do saute with butter, a small amount of olive oil will keep the butter from burning.
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avocado oil, walnut oil, hemp seed oil - all good for cholestorol, omega 3,6,9 benefits too.
try adding things like chillis, lemon, herbs etc to bottled olive oil for salad dressings/drizzling...
Kate
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I use oil quite sparingly so I don't fret about it so much. I generally use olive oil... extra virgin for salads and a "light" version for other things. I use peanut oil if I need a high heat tolerance as it's best. Walnut oil is a nice change for salad dressings too. I often make my own dressings, and if you need a nice vinegar look into Melfor, which is a French vinegar, or Vincotto with Orange... and of course Balsamic (aged!).
And you're not gay if you don't own White Truffle oil! heee
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I use olive oil mostly, although for fun when stir frying, I will add peanut, walnut or almond oil.
I also don't care for Canola oil. Used to be called Rapeseed oil.
For salads, I use one of the above oils with either balsamic or rice vinegar.
HUGS,
Mark
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We are using olive oil more and more. But some things just dont taste right unless vegetabe oil is used....like popcorn. We pop our own ( no microwave stuff). Kurt pops himself a bowl almost everyday. I have decided the corn oil tastes best.
I can use olive oil for most other cooking. I still have problems with the way salad dressing tastes, tho....so I mix it 50-50 with corn oil.
But I want to try Penguins suggestions of walnut, avacado and Phillys suggestion of peanut oil. How does chicken taste fried in peanut oil?
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Oil update: we bought walnut oil to be used in salad dressings. Kurt says it tastes like wood. Well, yea, walnuts are from trees!!!
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At home we barely eat anything fried, but some things just have to be fried in corn oil or whatever oil you are used to. It's just a matter of moderation. I fry some things (like eggs) in butter and always have a bottle of olive oil (extra virgin) on the table for salads and other vegetables. Mom usually boils or steam cooks many vegetables. They taste great and it helps our triglyceride levels go down. Bear, I never knew somebody could pop their own popcorn! :o I would love to taste it.
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Actually the wood taste I find is what makes walnut oil so nice. Buy Kurt some truffle oil and he'll complain that it tastes like dirt.
I *ALWAYS* pop my own popcorn. In fact, I even have a designated pot for it because it pretty much ruins the metal with black discoloration on the inside bottom. I think it tastes much better than microwave popcorn, plus you get to melt real butter and drizzle as you like. However, I would not use the walnut oil for cooking like that, only use it on salad or brushed on meats before grilling. Peanut oil works good for popcorn as it has a high heat tolerability.