Vegetable Oil - Safe or Scary?

Vegetable Oils - Safe or Scary?

Olive Oil
We consume nearly 10 times as much olive oil in the U.S. as we did 25 years ago. Why? Thank the Mediterranean diet. Rich in vegetables, fruits, fish, and lots of olive oil, this way of eating has kept generations of people in the Mediterranean region practically heart-disease free--and lean. Americans have been wising up to the benefits of this fragrant, flavorful oil, which has the highest percentage of heart-healthy monounsaturated fat of any oil, in addition to loads of antioxidants.

Verdict: An excellent choice. Make olive oil your main oil at home, both for cooking and salads. And experiment with using olive oil instead of butter on your bread--it's delicious.

SXC

Common Vegetable Oils: Canola, Soybean, Corn, and Beyond

It's in this category where there's the most controversy. Some experts trumpet the benefits of the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in these oils, while someone like Dr. Barry Sears, the man behind the Zone diet, believes the high level of omega-6 fatty acids (as opposed to the healthier omega-3s) in vegetable oils help cause inflammation, a major cause of many types of chronic disease.

Verdict: These oils--especially expeller-pressed canola oil--are just fine when used in moderation for cooking or salads. Deep-frying in gallons of it, of course, is not the way to go, unless you're looking for a calorie and inflammation bomb

Getty

Palm Fruit Oil
Now that the secret's out that a lard popsicle would be healthier for you than packaged cookies made with partially hydrogenated oils (a.k.a. trans-fats), the food industry is scrambling to find a trans-fat substitute. Enter palm fruit oil. Now starting to appear in some lines of cookies and pie crusts, palm fruit oil contains a higher percentage of saturated fat than other vegetable oils, so it's semi-solid at room temperature and acts as a good alternative for those partially hydrogenated oils. Plus, it's fairly high in antioxidants.

Verdict: While saturated fat is not a great thing, there's no question that minimally processed palm fruit oil is an improvement over trans-fats.

Image courtesy hermitcrabaddictionstore.com

Spray Oils
Hmm. How is it possible that every brand of oil that comes in a spray can has no fat? All oil, no matter what kind, has 120 calories per tablespoon, remember? But if you check the labels, you can see for yourself: zero calories, zero fat. Turns out this is a serving-size issue, as pointed out by nutrition professor/author Marion Nestle. One serving is generally a fraction-of-a-second-long spray of the product. And since the amount of oil that comes out in a quarter of a second provides a quarter gram of fat, and the FDA doesn't require food companies to list anything below half a gram on the Nutrition Facts label, we're led to believe these oils contain no fat. But they do, just like any other oil.

Verdict: Label trickery aside, the products themselves are okay.

Image courtesy Pam