Cooking oil Totally Explained

Everything about Cooking Oil totally explained

Cooking oil is purified fat of plant or animal origin, which is liquid at room temperature.
   Some of the many different kinds of edible vegetable oils include: olive oil, palm oil, soybean oil, canola oil, pumpkin seed oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, peanut oil, grape seed oil, sesame oil, argan oil and rice bran oil. Many other kinds of vegetable oils are also used for cooking.
   The generic term "vegetable oil" when used to label a cooking oil product refers to a blend of a variety of oils often based on palm, corn, soybean or sunflower oils.
   Oil can be flavoured by immersing aromatic food stuffs such as fresh herbs, peppers and so forth in the oil for an extended period of time. However, care must be taken when using garlic and onions to prevent the growth of Clostridium botulinum (the bacteria that produces toxins that can lead to botulism) in this medium.

Health and nutrition

The appropriate amount of fat as a component of daily food consumption is the topic of some controversy. Some fat is required in the diet, and fat (in the form of oil) is also essential in many types of cooking. The FDA recommends that 30% or less of calories consumed daily should be from fat. Other nutritionists recommend that no more than 10% of a person's daily calories come from fat. In extremely cold environments, a diet that's up to two-thirds fat is acceptable and can, in fact, be critical to survival.
While consumption of small amounts of saturated fats is essential, excessive amounts of such fats has been shown to be correlated with coronary heart disease. Oils that are particularly high in saturated fats include coconut, palm oil and palm kernel oil. Oils with lower amounts of saturated fats, and higher amounts of unsaturated (preferably monounsaturated) fats, are generally healthier.. Oils that are suitable for high temperature frying (above 280°C/500°F) include:

Canola oil
Almond oil
Apricot kernel oil
High-oleic safflower oil or sunflower oil
Peanut oil (marketed as 'groundnut oil' in the UK)
Soybean oil
Grape seed oil

Oils suitable for medium temperature frying include:

Walnut oil

Sunflower oil

Sesame oil Unrefined oils should be restricted to temperatures below 105°C/225°F.

Storing and keeping oil

Whether refined or not, all oils are sensitive to heat, light and exposure to oxygen. Rancid oil has an unpleasant aroma and acrid taste, and its nutrient value is greatly diminished. To delay the development of rancid oil, a blanket of an inert gas, usually nitrogen, is applied to the vapor space in the storage container immediately after production. This is referred to as tank blanketing.
It is best to store all oils in the refrigerator or a cool, dry place. Oils may thicken, but if you let them stand at room temperature that'll soon return to liquid. To prevent negative effects of heat and light, take oils out of cold storage just long enough to use them. Refined oils high in monounsaturated fats keep up to a year (if they're olive oil, they'll keep up to a few years), while those high in polyunsaturated fats keep about six months. Extra-virgin and virgin olive oils keep at least 9 months after opening. Other monounsaturated oils keep well up to a high eight months; unrefined polyunsaturated oils only about half as long.

Types of oils and their characteristics

Further Information

Get more info on 'Cooking Oil'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://cooking_oil.totallyexplained.com">Cooking oil Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.