Unhealthy Cooking Oils

There's a confusing subject to most people out there as to why some oils and fats you use in cooking or baking are actually harmful to your body, and why some are healthful.

Many people seem to think that anything labeled as "vegetable oil" is good for you. NO! Most labeled "vegetable oil" are simply heavily refined soybean oil (processed under high heat, pressure, and industrial solvents). It might also be heavily refined cottonseed, safflower, corn, grapeseed, and other oils too.

In most cases, these processed oils are NOT good for your health.

If you buy processed food or deep fried food, you can usually be certain that these unhealthy oils are used to prepare your foods (or worse, in some cases it may be trans fats!).

You might have even bought these oils for cooking or baking at home.

The problem with soybean oil, cottonseed oil, corn oil, grapeseed oil, safflower oil, or other similar oils is that they contain polyunsaturated fats, which leaves them prone to oxidation and free radical production when exposed to heat and light.

Processed polyunsaturated oils become inflammatory inside our bodies due to reactivity to heat and light. That would be one of the causes of many internal problems or degenerative diseases like heart disease and diabetes.

All of the vegetable oils listed above are heavily refined during processing, which makes them already inflammatory before cooking with them (more damage).

Even mainstream health professionals will never tell you this: The healthiest oils to cook with are saturated fats. They are much more stable and less inflammatory than polyunsaturated oils.

This is why tropical oils such as palm and coconut oils are best for cooking. They have very little polyunsaturates and are mostly composed of natural saturated fats.

In fact, one of the key acids (lauric) found in tropical oils is known to strengthen the immune system. It is even being studied currently for controlling contagious diseases.

To close, butter or tropical oils are your best cooking or baking fats. Olive oil (extra virgin preferably) is ok for lower cooking temps as it's mostly monounsaturated, so moderately stable. The mostly polyunsaturated oils such as soybean, grapeseed, cottonseed, safflower, etc, are the least healthy for cooking or baking.
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