Oils And Butter

What is the healthiest cooking oil?

Saying which cooking oils are the most healthy is always fun, because my perspective is that it's probably not a healthy idea to cook with cooking oil. In the healthiest cultures in the world they don't cook with cooking oil. They put the oil on after they're finished cooking, and they drizzle it on. Or if they do use some cooking oil they use very little. But what you are looking for if you are going to cook at all with oil is a cooking oil that has a high smoke point and the highest smoke point cooking oil is avocado oil. Next to that would be things like olive oil or sunflower oil. Those are other alternative cooking oils that have a relatively high smoke point. But avocado is for the most part the best one for cooking because of its very high smoke point.

What is an oil's "smoke point"?

Smoke point is where the oil--you'll see when you're cooking with an oil that it will start to smoke at a certain temperature. And the minute that it starts smoking, you can see it, it's visible when the fat is very hot and you'll see the smoke in the air. that means that the fat is no longer bioavailable to your body. It is now in a form that is almost like a Trans fatty acid when you eat it. Very unhealthy for you.

Is margarine a healthy alternative to butter?

Regarding the butter vs. margarine controversy, without question we've never seen a decline in heart disease or any other major illness that these margarines were developed to prevent. If anything there's been an increase. So obviously margarine doesn't work. The organic butter absolutely makes sense. Man has been eating organic butter since the beginning of time, practically, and has not had any kind of major health problems like heart disease or any of those other illnesses. Regarding substitutes, I'm absolutely not in favor of any of them. I believe that what we should be eating are natural oils. Instead of having Earth Balance or any other man-made product, why not have pure virgin olive oil and dip your bread in that if you must dip your bread in anything. Or learn to eat the way healthy cultures eat. Those are some of the things they do, you know, drizzle your oil on your food for flavor after you've finished cooking it. Use real butter on your toast that's organic and, you know, raised in farms where they're organically growing everything. That's what I recommend. I don't recommend any manmade products in the form of spreads unless it's pure, fresh-ground nut butters, for example, which you can do yourself at home.