I love a fry-up. Coming from England, I would! There’s not a decent British kitchen that doesn’t proudly house a chip fryer (AKA a deep-fat fryer). When I was back there this summer, Mom and Dad treated me to fish & chips at the local pub, and it took my stomach days to get over the foul amount of grease involved – literally dripping out of the bottom of the newspaper. Despite my clean & healthy eating regime, I do try to be flexitarian and do the, “when in Rome” thing, because there is nothing worse than someone showing up at your house or a restaurant (especially a pub,) with a personal container of quinoa and lentils!
Anyway, this leads me onto the cooking oil thing. This post was sparked by a comment left on my “Ulimate Shopping List” post about how unhealthy canola oil is, and that it should be removed from the list. The truth is that most mass-produced canola oils should not be included, but it’s really important to understand that not all canola (and other veggie oils too,) are created equal. If you were to buy expeller-pressed oil, especially from a reputable company like Spectrum, you will have a perfectly healthy cooking oil, which works well when using high heat.
It’s all about the processing of the oil: Most mass market cooking oils use a petroleum-based chemical called hexane to extract the oil from the seed. This is not only horrible for the environment, but leaves behind questionable residues in the oil. If, however, you buy an expeller pressed oil, this means that the oil is extracted from the seed by way of the hydraulic action of an expeller press – much healthier.
The other thing that’s important to consider is whether the oil you are using is genetically modified or not. If you want to find out, you have to go to the company’s website, however, a few companies will state on their label if they are non-GMO. If prop 37 (Your Right To Know,) passes on the CA ballot in November, then all foods containing GMO ingredients will have to be labelled – so I pray this bill gets passed.
In terms of cooking oils for frying, you need to consider the smoke point of the oil you want to use. Each oil has a different smoke point, meaning that it will begin to smoke at a certain temperature. When it begins to smoke, it releases unhealthy free-radicals. Obviously, if you are deep frying, you need an oil with a very high smoke point. Oils that I enjoy frying with because of their high smoke point, include grapeseed and coconut oils. With coconut oil, you can buy “refined” or “unrefined”. Both have a high smoke point, however the “refined” one has an even higher smoke point. I use coconut oil for frying pancakes, faux chicken (seitan), starting-off curries, and lots more. If I’m frying something where I don’t want the taste of the oil to interfere with the food, I use grapeseed, which has a very mild and neutral flavor.
A final note about cooking oil: I recommend that you never use EVOO for frying. It’s a waste of expensive oil, and it typically has a very low smoke point. You are much better off frying or cooking the dish with grape seed of expeller-pressed safflower oil and then finishing it off with EVOO. I do this when I prepare Italian dishes such as risotto, pasta sauces etc. Good quality EVOO should be used for drizzling only!
