How they can impact your meals AND your health!

If there’s anything that can make or break a dish, it’s cooking oil! Cooking oil is the foundation of a recipe, and it’s a lot more important than what you may imagine. The oil that you use while cooking can not only affect the taste of a dish, but also the nutritional value and overall quality as well.

Keep reading down below for all that you need to know about cooking oils! 

Why

Cooking oils are multipurpose, offering functionality, flavor, AND health benefits!

Spreading oil through a skillet before cooking facilitates the process of heat conduction, allowing the food in the skillet to be cooked more evenly and thoroughly.

Cooking oils are also loaded with lots of fats and minerals that can enhance the taste of your meal and offer you more nutrients as well.

What’s Best

When in the market for cooking oils, unrefined oils–also known as cold-pressed oils–are the way to go! These are oils that have been extracted from their plant or seed source mechanically, in the most natural manner possible, allowing the oil to retain its natural properties. 

Best Oils To Use:

• Avocado Oil
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Coconut Oil
• Beef Tallow 
• Ghee/Clarified Butter 
• Grass-Fed Butter 

What You Should Avoid

On the contrary, refined oils are oils that are curated from their source via heat extraction. The high temperatures utilized via heat extraction cause the oils to lose a significant amount of nutrients, making them less beneficial for your body. Refined oils are then treated with an array of different chemicals to deodorize and bleach them, thus further deteriorating the quality of the oil and leaving chemical residue within it as well. Another thing to be aware of is that many refined oils come from GMO crops.

Refined oils are typically very high in omega-6 fatty acids, as well. When consumed in excessive amounts, omega-6 fatty acids can lead to inflammation of the gut and even heart disease.

Refined Oils To Avoid:

• Canola Oil
• Sunflower Oil
• Peanut Oil
• Soybean Oil
• Vegetable Oil

The Gist

The cooking oil that you use can have a major impact on the quality of your food and your health as well. To make sure that both you AND your meals are getting the nutrients they deserve, opt for oils with an “unrefined” or “cold-pressed” label on them. Check out some of these awesome options below, all available on Amazon for under $10!

What oils have you been using lately? Let us know in the comments down below!