The FrangloSaxon Cooks

Louisiana Cuisines

  • Home
  • Recipe List
  • Tripping & Talking
  • Reviews & Recommendations
  • Privacy Policy

Cooking Oils

February 4, 2016 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWhich cooking oils are best? It’s the eternal question facing cooks who shoot for both tasty and healthy cuisine. Then there’s which oil is best for the different cooking methods e.g., salad dressing, sauteing, or frying. Another issue involves the oil’s method of production. That’s a good place to start since you ideally want whatever oil you’re using to be free of impurities and easy on the digestive tract. Oils are not whole foods since they are extracted, therefore the method of extraction is important.

A good general rule that applies to all cooking oils is that whatever the purpose they should be organic, cold pressed or expeller pressed, and unrefined.

And what does that mean for the cook?

Organic means that no chemicals or pesticides were sprayed onto the plants in the field.

Cold pressed or expeller pressed means that oil producing seeds were not heated while being crushed to release the oil.

Unrefined means that chemicals were not added to the oil during its path from pressing to bottling. It’s important to remember that refining is a cosmetic procedure whose purpose is to make the oil clearer, paler, and odorless. It has no good effect on nutrition. Interestingly many organic oils are refined. In practical terms this means that no chemicals were applied in the field but are present in the finished product having been added during refining.

So what happens when oils are refined? The quick & dirty is as follows:

Seeds are picked, cleaned and steamed and then they are put into a press at high heat and crushed.

Next they are released into a hexane solution which gets rid of visible impurities, then put into a centrifuge with phosphate and spun. This causes the seed residue to separate from the oil which is then poured off.

So it helps to understand what hexane is and what it is is a food grade petroleum solvent used in seed extracted oils. It’s been categorized by the EPA as a hazardous air pollutant when inhaled and due to its petroleum base it is volatile, flammable and explosive. If you do an internet search on cooking oil factory explosions you’ll find plenty to read. This study gives a good idea about what’s out there: http://tinyurl.com/z5ozq4m

Then the crude oil is “neutralized.” This is to render it flavorless. The oil is treated with caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) or soda ash (sodium carbonate). These make the oil paler & clearer but also more prone to rancidity.

The final procedure consists in bleaching. This is done with fuller’s earth or activated carbon & clay. The process makes the oil lighter but still more rancid. Then it is deodorized at 500 degrees or more.

Here’s an industry produced short video describing this process, emphasis on industry produced. It wasn’t made by food purist foodies but by canola oil believers. Judge for yourself whether you want to consume refined oils after you watch it because this is how they are all made.

And I can’t wrap this up without a discussion of the big kahuna of bad for you oils. Cottonseed oil. As a child I used to visit a relative in a rural area who lived near a gin that had a cottonseed oil operation nearby. You could always tell when they were pressing seeds because it smelled a little like God was up in the sky frying himself a chicken dinner. In short, it smelled pretty good. This is probably why some big chains use it.

Fast forward a couple of decades when I picked up a chicken bucket and several hours later it felt like a weather system was moving through my lower intestine. I knew it was what I had eaten earlier but didn’t realize that it was the oil until a friend pointed out that chicken shacks use cottonseed oil and that cotton is heavily sprayed. Eureka! She was right. Since cotton is not categorized as a food crop it has more pesticides than usual and it even has natural toxins which remain in small quantities. It’s cheap and is in everything so check other processed food labels for it.

If you’ve gotten this far you just want to know what to buy so let’s start with the easiest.

Salad Dressing & Sauteing. Since salad dressing isn’t heated you just need to buy something you like that falls into the above mentioned categories. Extra virgin olive oil, walnut, avocado, grapeseed, pecan & sesame oils (the untoasted kind) are all excellent and these oils are fine for light sauteing over medium heat.

Frying. This is considered high heat so you want oils with higher smoke points. Oils stable over 350 degrees are clarified butter, peanut, coconut, palm, sesame and lard. When it comes to lard the only healthy kind is non hydrogenated fat from hormone free pigs. I get mine at the green market since I’ve never seen it for sale in a grocery store. (Update: It seems that Whole Foods now carries an organic lard in glass jars.) The lard they have there is not recommended. For really high heat (over 500 degrees) you can use rice bran or avocado oils but be aware that they’re harder to find and expensive.

Storage. Since oil is best stored in a cool dark place you want to buy from a store that has high turnover and the oil should be in a dark bottle. This is because most grocery stores have the lights on 24/7 which degrades the oil’s quality and a clear bottle exposes the oil to the light. Also check dates on bottles. If you’re buying some oddball expensive brand of specialty oil it’s probably best to go to a specialty store. Buying truffle oil at an edge of town super store that caters to people who need five gallons of oil for frying turkeys means you’re probably getting old oil.

Finally, it’s important to remember that we need fat, it’s filling and it makes things taste good. It slows down digestion so that you can go longer without eating and it acts as a carrier for fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. Nobody should feel guilty about craving it or eating it, but a little knowledge before you purchase can make you feel better in mind and body.


Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Turkey Poulette

Turkey Poulette

Personal Picks

  • Turkey Poulette
  • Mussolini Sandwich
  • Corn off the Cob Cakes
  • Chicken Mull
  • Salted Steens Ice Cream

Follow Us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

About Me

Hello, I'm Carine Clary and I'm the FrangloSaxon.

And is that a word? In a word - Yes! It reflects my French connections in the south part of the state and the Anglo Saxon ones on the Arkansas state line. I grew up eating & loving all the foods of Louisiana and the idea is to collect lots of them right here on this website.

What you'll find here is food that reflects everybody's cooking. Creole we know. Cajun we know. But how about Croatian or Vietnamese....or Italian or German....or the underestimated plain Southern food they do so well in the upstate parishes?

They're all part of who we are so pull up your chair and join me for some good eats!

Search the FrangloSaxon

Search by Holiday

  • Bastille Day
  • Christmas
  • Fourth of July
  • Mardi Gras
  • New Year's
  • Revillon
  • St. Joseph's Day
  • Tet
  • Thanksgiving

Search by Tradition

  • Cajun
  • Creole
  • Croatian
  • German
  • Greek
  • Italian
  • Southern
  • Vietnamese
  • African
  • French
  • Turkish
  • Mexican
  • Irish
  • Links I Like

    • The Homesick Texan
    • Acadiana Table
    • Southern Souffle
    • Savory Spices
    • Well Being Secrets
    • Deep South Dish

Recent Posts

  • Cheddar Chive Popovers
  • Calvados Chicken
  • Carrot Pumpkin Cake
  • Shrimp Stew
  • Strawberry Swiss Roll

Popular Posts

Chicken Mull

Chicken Mull is the old name for Stewed Chicken in milk. It’s also sometimes called Jallop.  This is a cold weather, church supper dish that has spread from its Georgia Carolina origins and now pops up in a few other spots. If you want your kids to come home on their college breaks, make sure… 

Read More »

Caramelized Lemongrass Shrimp

I don’t want to sound like a cranky old diner waitress here – but to fully appreciate this recipe there should be no substitutions. Caramelized Lemongrass Shrimp is a relatively simple stir fry but the full rich flavor comes from the interplay of the flavorings and the fats. Specifically, the fat in the shrimp heads and the… 

Read More »

A Vietnamese style cucumber salad that looks elegant and tastes really good. For some reason I’ve found that the dressing tastes better after it’s had a chance to set a spell, so if you have the time you should make it a day ahead or at least a couple of hours ahead but don’t add… 

Read More »

Back in pre World War II days it was actually possible to find restaurants in New Orleans which served something called Mussolini sandwiches. Say what?? It is true and I have the ad to prove it. I thought it would be fun to recreate but needless to say there is no record anywhere that I… 

Read More »

Sicilian Citrus Artichokes

Summertime! Time to give voice to your inner Sicilian. And what is he asking for? Perhaps a fresh steamed artichoke anointed with a golden sauce made of olive oil, orange, tangerine and lemon. So imagine you’re dining al fresco in a seaside trattoria in Palermo watching the fishermen rolling up their nets in the setting sun…. 

Read More »

I’m posting about a week after the usual King Cake cutoff date, but there is a good reason. And it’s not because the little King Cake fairy below took so long to get beautiful for her close up! No plastic baby here. She’s a french fève so it’s worth the wait since it looks like… 

Read More »

  • Home
  • Recipe List
  • Tripping & Talking
  • Reviews & Recommendations
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 · Foodie Child Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress