Thursday, March 15, 2012

Are all oils created equally?

Image from here


As I spend time with my new best friend Pinterest, my tummy grumbles.. my mind grumbles too. Can we just ban the pinning of baked sweets? PLEASE?! I swear if I see another peanut butter bar, I'm going to.. I don't know.. something drastic.. EAT SOMETHING!!

Ok, now that I got that off my chest..

I love drooling over all the healthy recipes. I have been fantasizing about the day when I can make and partake. I am trying to collect as many as I can so that I can start meal planning. (remember? Juice fast)

Speaking of meal planning, I decided to finally do a little research on fats and oils. What are the healthiest to cook and bake with, or use on salads.. Man there is a lot to consider.. which ones lose nutrients when heated, which ones are supposedly healthy but due to processing really arent.. y'know. And who has done all that research for me so that I can just copy, paste, and be healthy?

I researched

I read

I didn't know what I was reading

I determined that there are contradicting claims

I became more confused

Then I went into a grove of trees..

wait.. what?

Oh, I found this blog with comprehensive information and a fantastic chart, that I'm going to PIN.

Basically, Coconut oil and animal fats are your best bets at high temps. Should I be afraid of lard? My focus is on nutrition, not dieting, so... NOPE.. other than the fact that I have never cooked with it.

Oh, I also did a little reading up on agave nectar as a sweetener. My 2 cents: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Sweetener is sweetener, so although I'll probably have some on hand and use it as an alternative to sugar, I shouldn't have it on a glowing pedestal in my pantry.

A comment from the link: use WAY less to achieve the same sweetness. Fructose is what you find in NATURAL fruits like apples, etc. Fructose is absorbed into the body slower than sucrose (therefore the much lower glycemic index) so there's no Spike then Crash of your blood sugar which causes one to lose energy and BURN LESS CALORIES. And Sugar is processed

3 comments:

  1. My thought exactly: can't someone else just do the research so I can copy and paste? (I was waiting for you to do it). I finally decided to just stick with olive oil, coconut oil, and butter to make things easy. Then I read a terrifying article about olive oil, and now I don't know where to buy good olive oil. Sigh. Also, agave nectar, I was hoping you knew some insider info on that - like it's super good for you AND tastes exactly like sugar. Dang. Guess I will continue to be leery of it.

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  2. oh man, I love coconut oil. Lard, really? Green Smoothie Girl taught me that anything from an animal gives me cancer so I'm feeling unsure about lard. I try to take her words with a grain of moderation but I don't like doing all the research myself either so I just stick with her. Lard, huh? we'll have to talk more on that.

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  3. Any thought on palm oil? I use that for cooking sometimes.

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