How to Choose the Best Oil for Your Health

Firewood, rice, oil, salt, soybean sauce, vinegar and tea are the seven necessary things in the life of Chinese people. Actually, this sort can tell us how important edible oil is in our life.

However, there are so many kinds of edible oil: soybean oil, peanut oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower seed oil, olive oil... It is so difficult for us to make a decision.

How can we choose the healthiest oil? Let’s learn about it together.

1. Does edible oil differ from each other in nutrition?

Actually, edible oil is mainly different in the composition ratio of monounsaturated fatty acid, polyunsaturated fatty acid and saturated fatty acid.

What can these unsaturated or saturated fatty oil do?

Mono/polyunsaturated fatty oil: they can reduce the content of cholesterol in blood, which is beneficial to cardiovascular health.

Saturated acid: excessive intake of saturated acid will increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

The following table list the content of these three kinds of fatty acid in seven kinds of common oil.

From this table, it can be learned that the constitute of fatty acid in oil is the key to choosing health edible oil.

2. Which kind of oil is the healthiest?

The seven kinds of oil can be classified into three groups.

1) The most suggestive: olive oil/camellia oil

Over 70% monounsaturated fatty acid contained by these two kinds of oil makes them be the most suggestive or healthiest among edible oil to reduce blood lipids and keep cardiovascular healthy.

Besides, olive oil contains much antioxidant polyphenols.

The single insufficiency is both of them are pretty expensive.

Cooking suggestion:

Olive oil: Since polyphenols can be damaged in high temperature, it would be better for olive oil to be used in salad.

Camellia oil: It can be used in salad or fried dishes. Juiced camellia oil should be your first choice during shopping, which is more safer and has better quality.

P.S.: Camellia oil is also known as domestic olive oil but has better cost performance than olive oil. Therefore, camellia oil can totally be the substitute of olive oil.

2) Common recommendation:peanut oil/soybean oil/rapeseed oil/sunflower seed oil

Although their monounsaturated fatty acid content is smaller than that of olive oil and camellia oil, their polyunsaturated fatty acid is not high. Hence, these four kinds of oil neither good nor bad.

However, these four kinds of edible oil are economical to be daily edible oil.

Especially for peanut oil, the ratio of three kinds of fatty acid is about 4:3:2. It can be the comparably reasonable edible oil.

Cooking suggestion:

Peanut oil: It is of good flavor and heat resistance and is suitable to cook but not fry.

Soybean oil, rapeseed oil and sunflower seed oil: They are more suitable in stewing. If used in cooking, they cannot be heated to generate smoke.

3) Not suggestive: animal oil

The content of saturated oil in animal oil reach up to 42%. If animal oil is ingested for a long term, people will ingest excessive saturated fatty oil, which will lead to obesity and harm to cardiovascular health.

Therefore, animal oil is not suggested to be the main daily edible oil. Of course, you can ingest it sometimes (once/twice every week).

Cooking suggestion:

Animal oil is high temperature resistant. Besides cooking, it can also be used during fry or pastry making.

All in all, among common edible oil:

Olive oil and camellia oil are the healthiest and most expensive.

Peanut oil, soybean oil, rapeseed oil and sunflower seed oil are most economic.

Animal oil is not suggested.

Another four points should be noted here:

1. Consumption

The Chinese Dietary Guidelines suggests that edible oil ingested everyone everyday cannot be over 25-30g, which is around 2.5 white porcelain spoons.

However, to the elderly, people of dyslipidemia and the obese, their edible oil consumption should be reduced to 20g.

2. The oil temperature cannot be too high

Oil temperature must be controlled during cooking. High temperature will damage fat-soluble vitamins of food. They will also oxidize and fissure to generate harmful material.

Measuring oil temperature:

Insert a chopstick into oil and the oil temperature is appropriate when the oil bubbles around chopstick (around 100-120°C).

3. Buying a keg of oil

Edible oil can be easily oxidized after a seal is opened and its expiry date will be shortened.

POV of edible oil which has been opened over three months will larger than the value of national standard. The oil is no longer healthy. Therefore, it is better to buy a keg of oil.

4. Don’t ingest single oil

Since the ratio of fatty acids in different acid is different, fatty acid will not be balanced after long-term ingestion of single oil.