What Are The Healthiest Cooking Oils to Choose?

Choosing the right cooking oil for your kitchen means finding one that fits your needs, and doesn’t harm your health or the planet. People in England are more conscious than ever about fats, calories and food quality. Whether you want to roast vegetables, whip up a stir-fry or bake a cake, picking the best oil matters.

This vegan chocolate cake (Rainbow Nourishments) is oil-free!

The conversation about cooking oils goes well beyond taste and calorie count. Health experts, home cooks and chip shop owners are asking: Which oil works best for my body, my budget and the environment? To answer that, let’s look at what sets healthy oils apart and how to match them to your cooking style.

Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets.

Don’t give leftover fatty foods to garden birds or wildfowl (it smears on feathers, affecting waterproofing & insulation).

What Makes a Cooking Oil Healthy?

Not all oils are created equal. Some fill your food with flavour and beneficial nutrients, while others can load your heart with saturated fats or produce nasty stuff when overheated.

The healthiest oils share a few key qualities:

• High in unsaturated fats (the heart-friendly ones)
• Balanced omega-3 and omega-6 content
• Rich in antioxidants and vitamins
• Safe to use at chosen cooking temperatures

Smoke Points and Cooking Methods

The smoke point is a big deal. It’s the temperature when an oil starts to burn, smoke and lose flavour. Overheating oil makes your kitchen smoky and can create compounds that irritate the lungs or even increase health risks.

Here’s a quick overview:

• Rapeseed (canola) has a smoke point of 200 to 230 °C (roasting or frying)
• Sunflower has a smoke point of 220 to 225 °C (roasting or deep-frying)
• Olive has a smoke point of 160 to 190 °C (salads or low-heat cooking)
• Coconut has a smoke point of 175 to 200 °C (baking or sauteing)

Palm oil should be avoided (Greenpeace says there is no such thing as sustainable palm oil, The Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil is just self-policed, meanwhile orangutans have forest homes torn down, to provide cheap saturated fat (imported from thousands of miles away) to put in junk food and bar soaps.

Chip pans are a top cause of kitchen fires. So invest in a new safe air-fryer, the store you buy it from has to legally recycle old appliances.

For roasting and frying food at high temperatures, it’s best to choose oils with a high smoke point (like rapeseed, which makes great vegan roast potatoes – no goose fat required). This oil also helps to support local farmers (those bright yellow flowers you see in farmer fields are what are used to make the oil).

Olive oil is best reserved for salad dressings. If you do cook with it, stick to low-heat recipes. We have to be careful here to get too technical, as Italians, Spaniards and Greeks have been cooking with olive oil for centuries, and are a lot healthier than most people in England.

That’s not due to ‘eating lots of fish’. But more to eating proper meals with fresh fruits and vegetables, taking their time to eat and spending a lot more (by ratio) on food than people in England. Eat less food, but better food!

Oil is ‘Not a Food’

Oil is a refined food. It is not ‘natural’. Olives are natural, olive oil is not (not so long ago, you could only buy it in chemists). Walnuts are natural, walnut oil is not. Don’t believe the marketing that you have to use oil for your health, as you don’t.

Sometimes you have to make balanced decisions on the kind of life you want to live. You may decide that eating oil-free food does not make your life worth living, culinary-wise. But then you could also live a life of balance. Eating mostly oil-free or low-fat foods, then splurging for special occasions.

You can get omega 3 oils from many plant foods and algae-based supplements, you don’t have to eat fish (cooking destroys them anyway). And you can get omega 3 oils from nuts and seeds, you don’t have to eat ‘oil’ in order to benefit.

Rapeseed Oil (best for cooking)

Rapeseed oil is pressed from yellow-flowering rapeseed plants. English farmers grow plenty of it, making it a lower-mileage, more sustainable choice.

Why pick rapeseed oil?

• Rich in heart-healthy monounsaturated fats
• Higher in omega-3 than most cooking oils
• Low in saturated fat
• Neutral taste

Rapeseed oil has a higher smoke point (about 200-230°C), which keeps your roast potatoes crisp and your frying safe. Many chip shops choose rapeseed oil for its cost and quality, plus it supports local agriculture.

There is one Scottish organic rapeseed oil brand. English brands are not organic, but most are GM-free.

Olive Oil for Salad Dressings

Extra virgin olive oil is best health-wise for salad dressings, finishing dishes and healthy dips, due to its smoke point that is not best for high-heat cooking.

Benefits:

• Packed with antioxidants (polyphenols) that fight inflammation
• Lowers risk of heart disease in studies
• Boosts flavour in cold dishes and drizzles

The downside: It has a lower smoke point than some rivals, which means virgin or cold-pressed olive oil suits low to medium heat and raw uses best.

Sunflower Oil and Chip Shops

Walk past any chip shop and you’re likely to smell potatoes bubbling away. Unfortunately many now use palm oil, which is impacting rainforests in Indonesia. It’s best to choose rapeseed (a bit healthier than sunflower oil, though deep-fried chips are a treat, so never healthy!)

Too much omega-6 without enough omega-3 can nudge up inflammation in the body, so mix up your fats when possible.

Deep-frying with sunflower damages the fats. Think of a broken vase – it has been put together, but isn’t quite right anymore. This is what happens with sunflower oil, when it goes from the high temperature in your fryer, to your plate. Michaella Mazzoni (nutritionist)

Coconut Oil and Palm Oil: Debates and Concerns

Coconut oil grabbed headlines as a new superfood, but it doesn’t wear a health halo for everyone.

• Over 82% saturated fat (more than butter), which can raise cholesterol
• Some fans love the flavour for curries or vegan baking
• Solid at room temperature
• Can be flammable (take care when cooking)

Coconut fat is popular in Asian cooking, and as said above, it does have saturated fat, but we need to live lives of balance. The odd creamy coconut curry is not going to harm, just don’t eat it every day.

Never Pour Cooking Oil Down Sinks

Cooking oil poured down sinks and drains does a lot of damage. It can cause clogs (that cause hefty plumbing bills – the same happens with cream liqueurs like Baileys). For small amounts of cooking oil, just wrap it in kitchen paper and bin.

For larger amounts, then it’s best to invest in a cooking oil recycling bin (when full, empty it at your local recycling point). This can help to prevent fatbergs, which clog sewers and cost a lot of money and time to break up and recycle. Enter your postcode at Recycle Now to find out your nearest point.

Another way to avoid excessive cooking oil waste, is simply to cook with less oil. So try steaming your veggies and using an air-fryer!

For commercial places (like restaurants), you’ll find local companies that can collect cooking oil in bulk. Wherever it’s recycled, it can then be turned into biodiesel fuel. Sometimes its’ turned into animal feed (this is not really good, as cows for instance should live on grass, not recycled oil).

Having said that, the average business that uses oil goes through 20 litres a week (think say of chip shops and fast food restaurants). That’s a lot of oil, if it’s not recycled properly. As well as not being good to pour it down drains and into the sea, it’s illegal (and can result in fines of around £10,000). So it’s not worth it either way.

Fatbergs have serious consequences also for fish and marine life, as they choke oxygen out of the water. In 2018, the Museum of London displayed a slice of a huge fatberg found in the sewer under Whitechapel, the original one weighing 130 tons.

Pouring cooking oil down drains, also leads to foul smells, which is not good for your business. Commercial kitchens should also install grease traps (to collect used cooking oil) and try to reuse oil, if it’s okay after being strained, to remove food waste. Once cooking oil becomes dark and starts to smell, it’s time to recycle it.

How to Cook and Bake (without oil)

Air-fryer sweet potato fries (Broke Bank Vegan) are nice served with ketchup. Better than KFC and Burger King fries (both cooked in animal fat). McDonald’s aren’t (but they are in some countries abroad).

You can buy air-fryer at all main stores (like Argos) and supermarkets. Also consider a silicone air fryer basket (also in rectangular shape). This has 2 sheets (measure air basket before ordering). The slotted holes and air-flow keeps it clean, and the dishwasher-safe liners capture oil and large food bits.

Silicone is made from a blend of sand and fossil fuels, but it’s food-safe, lasts years and is easy to recycle. It also withstands high temperatures, so the liners can also be used for steamers and ovens.

You can also easily cook without oil:

• Use veggie stock, water or wine to sauté onions and garlic
• Bake using fruit puree (mashed banana, applesauce) in cakes or brownies
• Try non-toxic non-stick pans or silicone baking mats.
• Roast vegetables with a splash of balsamic or lemon juice
• Use spices, herbs and techniques for flavour.

Oil-Free Vegan Recipe Books

Brandi Doming is a former model in the USA, who managed to help heal her husband’s gout, by creating tasty recipes without oil (or gluten). Her book The Vegan 8 has recipes with 8 ingredients or less (not including water and salt).

They are surprisingly simple and tasty, and a great option from a woman, who has mastered the art of cooking tasty food, without oil. To be clear, Brandi says she is oil-free (not fat-free). We need fats, but she uses real olives, nuts, seeds etc, in place of refined oils. She does use coconut milk in some of her recipes, to replace dairy.

Recipes include:

• Roasted Gold Potatoes with Rosemary Sauce
• Bakery-style Blueberry Muffins
• Cream ‘Cheese’ Spinach Artichoke Dip
• Cajun Veggie & Potato Chowder
• Skillet Baked Mac n ‘Cheese’
• BBQ Bean Ball Sub
• No-Bake Chocolate Espresso Fudge Cake

To hit the same amount of fat and calories in 1 tablespoon of olive oil, you would need to eat 24 pitted green olives. 8 olives vs 1 teaspoon of olive oil gives a lot more food, with fibre and nutrients. A tiny dab of oil or lots of olives? I’ll take the olives. Chef Lindsay Nixon

Plant-Based Delicious is a book of flavourful recipes that are free from animal produce, gluten and oil. So are super-healthy, yet taste wonderful. The author is a chef and nutritionist, so combines her knowledge of both areas. Then learn to make:

• Cauliflower Casserole
• Tofu Black Bean Burgers
• Spicy Sheet Pan Cauliflower Tacos
• Rice Poutine with Miso Gravy (not for pregnancy, unpasteurised)
• Tofu Benedict with Corn Hollandaise & Spinach
• Mushroom Lasagne with Kale & White Bean Ricotta
• Moroccan Potpies with Almond Pastry
• Maple ‘bacon’ Cauliflower Steaks with Lentils
• Mint Chocolate Ice Cream Cheesecake
• Double Chocolate Chip Chickpea Cookies
• The Chocolate Cupcake

Neal Barnard MD calls this book ‘a secret culinary weapon’, and it’s loved by acclaimed chef Sarah Britton as ‘food you want to dive headfirst into’.

Originally from Canada, Ashley Madden is a certified holistic nutritionist and former pharmacist, who became interested in anti-inflammatory foods, after being diagnosed with MS. She lives in Tapai (Taiwan) with her family.