For many, just saying the words ‘oil’ or ‘fat’ out loud strikes fear in the heart of those who were taught that consuming oil in ones diet is what makes you fat. This is quite old school thinking and the truth of the matter that has been discovered more recently is that eating fat will not make you fat as quickly as eating non-vegetable carbohydrates will. Plus, some fats are crucial to our health and very existence.
The kind of oils / fats (fats = are simply where the same oil has simply solidified due to colder temperatures) that are essential to our health are those that are undamaged by heat and organically grown. The most essential fats we need are omega 3 and omega 6. These are deemed ‘essential’ fatty acids because the body cannot make them, so they must be obtained through our diet.
Also, the type of saturated fat in coconut oil is great for our health too. This is because it is the medium chain triglycerides variety which do not get stored as fat, but are instantly converted as energy. Plus, the lauric acid type of medium chain triglyceride is antibacterial, antiviral, and anti fungal! With the only other abundant source of lauric acid being your mothers breast milk… I don’t think, in fact I know your bottle of sunflower cooking oil that’s been in your cupboard for years is not capable of giving you half as many benefits, and in fact will be contributing to poor health on a cellular level. Another reason we need good fats, as they help us to keep our cell walls up and stable, and every single organ and tissue in our body is made up completely from cells.
Most of us are currently cooking the living daylights (and nutrients!) out of the oils we cook with at present, and when we heat certain cooking oils too high – this then changes the molecular structure of the oil to something different to when you started out. This is what makes the cooking oils like margarine, sunflower oil, olive oil, rapeseed oil (and all other vegetable oils) not a good choice to use. They will in fact once heated, become toxic and unrecognisable to the body.
This is without even mentioning the fact that the cooking oils I have listed here could have already arrived on your supermarket shelf damaged from heat and light during the manufacturing process, making them rancid before you even buy them.
One oil that can withstand high cooking heat and is therefore safest to cook with is organic coconut oil. I use this oil to cook everything in. From baking, stir frying, shallow frying, roasting, to making gluten free, sugar free, dairy free cakes actually!
So, you can see it is very versatile. My favourite coconut oil to use that I have tasted so far is definitely Pukka’s Organic Virgin Coconut Oil. It has quite an overall neutral taste with only a small hint of coconut. But once you start adding your ingredients like herbs or spices, or sweet ingredients if baking, the taste of coconut I find completely goes. Making it edible for even the fussiest of eaters.