Cooking with Fats?

I am confused, not a good place to be.


What is a good fat to cook with?

I have heard Dr B say he cooks his eggs with coconut oil. Kinda spendy.

I have read ala the internet that LARD even gets a bad rap and is not as bad as other fats. What about butter?

I normally cook with olive oil or canola oil.

What is the worst fat to cook with?

Thanks
1 Like

I am a coconut oil and lard type of cooking person too and also use butter. I regularly roast slabs of pork fat for nibbles (crackling) and save the fat into a dripping pot like I used to 20+ years ago before it was deemed unhealthy.
My understanding is that while olive oil is good used cold it does turn to undesireable when heated and Canola being a plant oil is not good for us anymore.
Alison

I cook with olive oil, butter, ghee, lard and when necessary canola oil. I always try to not overheat the oil which can damage it and make it unhealthy. If the oil reaches the smoke point, you have overheated it. Like you, I have found coconut oil great, but expensive. I buy olive oil by the gallon and we go through 2-3 lbs of butter a week. I generally buy light olive oil, it can stand a higher heat. When mixed with butter, olive oil can stand an even higher heat. Ghee (clarified butter) can be used for most of the higher heat cooking. If you need very high heat, such as searing a steak, you need to use lard or canola oil in order to achieve those temperatures.

I personally don’t like the taste of coconut oil and fry my eggs in butter or dripping.
Hana

For high temperature cooking, saturated fats (like butter) are safest.

Canola oil isn’t a healthy choice. I posted this discussion about canola oil https://forum.tudiabetes.org/topics/canola-oilunhealthy-food-for

I use butter, bacon drippings & virgin coconut oil for cooking. Olive oil for salads, marinades & anything that’s not heated.

I’m not disagreeing, but the fats in butter burn at about 350 deg. I don’t always have ghee. And my wife insists on a vegetable oil and I’d rather agree to canola over soy or corn oil. Sometimes a modest health risk is worth it for marital bliss.

And I want to know how you get all those bacon drippings. I maybe eat a pound of bacon a week, but the drippings don’t go very far. Also, I use an extra virgin olive oil for salads and a light olive oil for cooking.

And while I’m at it, I would like to know how many of you save your tallow and how many of you actually buy lard. My local Giant used to only have lard in pound packages over by the butter, but now they stock gallons in the mexican food aisle.

Maybe my bacon is fattier than yours, but I just pour it off into a can & get quite a bit after a while.

Easy to make ghee, if you want to.

Surely it’s the proteins and any remaining carbs in the butter that burn. that’s why Ghee doesn’t, because those substances have been removed. In general Saturated fats burn less than oils.

Hana

I think you are right, it is the milk solids that burn. I’ve made ghee, but I guess part of my problem is that other people in my house (who shall remain unnamed) go through and throw out little containers of congealed fat. A purchased contained of store bought ghee is resistant to this filtering.

I have trained T1 husband that fats are good for him, so he wouldn’t do that. I had a longtime trsaining him not to throw out gravy after Sunday lunch. I like to give it to the dogs. In small quantities
Hana

Hana’s right.

Ghee is pure fat with the solids removed & why it doesn’t need to be refigerated. Guess unnamed family members would throw out collected bacon drippings also:) I make my own when I feel like it. Restaurants use it, but call it clarified butter.

I get frustrated when I see examples of fats being demonised[as in a recent Jamie Oliver TV show] when the real danger is excessive carbohydrate. Add that to the idea that fats can be classified as “Good” or “Bad”, which was a device used to keep up the “fats are harmful’” mantra even after it was shown conclusively that they are ESSENTIAL.
At one time Doctors in the UK were treating small children for what they called "VOLVO/MUESLI syndrome. Tiny children failing to thrive, because their conscientious, well meaning mothers, were cutting the fat from their diets and they were deficient in fat soluble vitamins. {For US Readers; VOLVO Estate cars are common in wealthy middle class areas.}
Hana

Share your concerns. Upsetting to see some parents here keeping children’s diets low fat. The low fat mantra indeed. Some years ago one of my nephews (he’s was 11 or 12 at the time) was watching his fat intake! They had a “healthy diet” lesson in his class with the usual food pyramid. When he was a teenager, he was concerned with gaining weight even though he’s always been thin. Obsession with weight isn’t just a teenage girl issue.

We need a lot of work worldwide to educate people on fats. I just read another article by Anthony Colpo. the high priest af anti low carbing, where he again states that "lowcarb/high fat, Who would recommend that?"

Mind you he is writing articles on insulin for the body building weightloss readership.
Ps UK parents are now being advised to give children whole milk rather than skimmed and to let them have yogurt{ still most commercial yogurt is low fat and extremely high in sugar.}

Greetings Guys and Gals"
Please enlighten this Kentuckian and explain Ghee.

Thanks Chele

So if I got this correctly…

Fat to cook with at low heat (what the heck do you cook at low heat?) - olive oil, coconut oil, and (if I must) canola oil.

Fat to cook with at med - high heat (searing, frying eggs, etc.) - butter, ghee, lard, drippings, and coconut oil.

Does this sound right?

from the posts, Ghee is clarified butter, which means the milk solids and protein have been extracted in some manner and only the fatty liquid remain. Have a look at this LINK

Just what onesaint wrote. Super easy to make your own clarified butter (ghee).

You’ve got it!

Ok, last question. Some examples of things you cook over a low flame on the range?