Four healthy oils to use in the kitchen

WHILE too much fat, especially of the ‘bad’ variety, can lead to weight gain and health issues, a moderate amount is essential to a healthy lifestyle.

Adding a little fat to your food, either in cooking or as a drizzle over salads, can help to fill you up after a meal, as well as boost health by helping the body absorb several fat-soluble vitamins.

However, with recent news that coconut oil, long believed to be a ‘healthy’ fat, should actually be avoided, you may be wondering which fats are the good ones.

Canola oil This oil is the lowest in saturated fat (7%), while also containing high levels of monounsaturated fatty acids, which lower LDL and in recent years have been studied for potentially helping control blood glucose.

This oil is great for stir-frying, grilling, and replacing many solid fats – the ones to avoid – in recipes.

Olive oil Olive oil is well-known for its many health benefits, including lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a reduced level of inflammation in the body.

Use extra-virgin and virgin olive oils for uncooked dishes, like salads, and choose refined olive oils for cooking as they are better at higher temperatures.

Peanut oil Peanut oil is high in monounsaturated (good) fat, as well as vitamin E, an antioxidant that helps maintain a strong immune system, healthy skin and eyes, and helps with the formation of red blood cells.

Because of its high smoke point, this oil is ideal for frying, roasting and grilling.

Avocado oil Also high in monounsaturated fats and vitamin E, this oil has a tasty but mild flavour that is great to add cold onto salads.

Its high smoke point means it can be used for cooking. However, if avocado oil is too expensive or difficult to find, canola oil makes a good budgetfriendly alternative.

Oils to avoid Saturated or ‘solid fats’ are oils that are solid at room temperature such as coconut oil, butter, palm oil, beef tallow, and lard.

Because saturated fat contributes to a rise in the level of LDL (or ‘bad’) cholesterol, the AHA recommends that saturated fat should make up at the most 10% of total caloric intake for healthy Americans, and only 6% for those who need to lower cholesterol levels. – AFP-Relaxnews