Contrary to what many people think canola's omega-3 to omega-6 ratio is actually not too bad, while soy and corn are off the charts in terms of omega-6 dominance.
EDIT: to answer your question on cooking or baking, coconut and avocado are great, mostly monounsaturated, and have high smoke points. As does pure olive oil (the yellow stuff, not the green EVOO, which is preferred for salad dressings or lower heat cooking). There was a recent study, done at UC Davis, that found a lot of avocado oil to be fraudulent.[0]. Otherwise for frying, beef tallow is still the best, and ghee can also be used for sautéing since it has a much higher smoke point than unrefined butter.
[0] https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/study-finds-82-percent-avo...
> Only two brands produced samples that were pure and nonoxidized. Those were Chosen Foods and Marianne’s Avocado Oil, both refined avocado oils made in Mexico. Among the virgin grades, CalPure produced in California was pure and fresher than the other samples in the same grade.
It degrades less with heating than other oils and it has a very healthy fatty acid profile.
For salads or other food that is not cooked after adding oil, extra virgin olive oil may be preferred, because it contains other desirable substances besides fatty acids, but heating will degrade those, so for frying and baking olive oil does not have any advantage over the much cheaper high oleic sunflower oil.
Besides high oleic sunflower oil, there are also other kinds of oil that are claimed to be "high oleic", which should have similar frying properties, but I do not have any experience with those.
I generally prefer cooking, frying, and baking with avocado oil, both because of its health profile and because because it's extremely flavor-neutral, while olive and coconut both add a distinct taste to the dish which may not necessarily be desirable.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095671352...
Chosen Foods and Marianne’s Avocado Oil are the only two that are 100% pure refined avocado oil.
However the price of avocado oil varies wildly from country to country. In Europe, where I live, it is 3 to 6 times more expensive that olive oil and 15 to 20 times more expensive than high oleic sunflower oil.
So in most places of Europe, the best choice for high-temperature cooking would be high oleic sunflower oil, because it is very cheap, being produced locally and not imported, like avocado oil.
Two, a connection between high PUFA oils in general and poor health outcomes is being postulated by other researchers... and, to be fair, many people who probably have no particular expertise and/or hidden associations, such as diet fads. But that's one of the reasons I asked the question initially; even the sources that would normally be trustworthy on other science (government scientists) have proven to be wildly incorrect and untrustworthy when it comes to dietary issues. I was honestly hoping someone that works in the field would pop up to comment.
When I'm cooking/baking, I use butter, olive oil, and (lately) bacon grease, depending on what I'm making.
Coincidentally, in January I had made a list of everything in my fridge and pantry. The only things left with soy were mayonnaise, tortillas, and hamburger buns. I started making the bread products myself for fun. I haven't tried to replace the mayonnaise yet (I really dislike avocado mayo), but it's next.
Grapeseed oil is my go to.
It's fairly neutral in flavor (slight nuttiness), has high smoke point, and is one that is a source of Vitamin E.
For frying and then roasting, I use avocado oil, but keep in mind that many avocado oil bought on the shelves are already oxidized or rancid. There's a handful of brands that tested to be pure, one being Chosen Foods (that I use).
Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30105062
Of course that's based on two suppositions: 1) that the reason soybean oil is bad in this study is its PUFA content, and 2) that it's also bad for humans, not just mice.
FTA:
>One additional note on this study — the research team has not yet isolated which chemicals in the oil are responsible for the changes they found in the hypothalamus. But they have ruled out two candidates. It is not linoleic acid, since the modified oil also produced genetic disruptions; nor is it stigmasterol, a cholesterol-like chemical found naturally in soybean oil.
My understanding of linoleic acid is that it got a ton of good press as a result of the blowback from the discovery that we were basically poisoning ourselves with trans fats. So it wasn't really that we know PUFAs / linoleic acid are good, it's just that we know they're an existing alternative to something very bad.
Example random study link that points out some of the unknowns around linoleic acid: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5492028/
Unknowns != Linolenic acid is harmful; and from this study it's at least obvious that it doesn't change genetic expression in the thalamus.
AFAIK the high temperature of frying oil destroys the vitamins it may have
Unless you're commercially deep frying with the same oil over several days, there's minimal vitamin E loss from frying.
EVOO, contrary to intuition, is apparently one of the better oils to use for long periods of pan and deep frying. The impurities lower the rate of oxidation of the oil and the formation of volatile organic compounds.
Plus, they taste amazing.
It's kind of like saying sugar isn't bad by bringing up LD50 (13.5g/lb bodyweight). Immediately dying from overdose is probably the last thing people have in mind when discussing what foods are bad for us.
However, if the pan only has a couple onion slices, or there's more oil than onions, or the heat is way too high, the situation changes. You can also overheat high-smoke-point oils if you're not careful. Careful observation and regulation of environmental factors is necessary in all cases.
- Bacon fat - Avocado Oil - Butter - Coconut oil - Olive Oil
If it's not one of these (or some other form of meat fat), I skip it.
Extra virgin Olive for low heat application.
Definitely want to avoid Cottonseed as it contains a chemical used as male contraception (unless you want that!)
edit: Partially wrong! I'm told above that high oleic sunflower oil has a different profile with less linoleic oil, and apparently it's becoming more common: https://www.nutritionletter.tufts.edu/general-nutrition/what...
This non-traditional sunflower oil has little PUFA and it is perfect for frying and baking.
The sunflower variety grown for high oleic oil has a genetic mutation with this effect, but it was not obtained with the modern genetic modification technologies, because obviously such technologies did not exist in the Soviet Union in the seventies of last century.
Instead of that, the Russians have treated some sunflower seeds with a chemical known to cause random genetic mutations. Then they have grown and selected several generations of plants until they have found one type with the desired characteristic of producing oil consisting mainly of oleic acid.
Later analysis has shown that this is due to a single mutation, which diminishes the activity of the enzyme that converts oleic acid into linoleic acid in traditional sunflower plants.
The detail about forcing genetic mutation is neat, will have to read up on that.
That said, which oils would you use for frying and baking? Most high smoke point oils are, like soybean, polyunsaturated, so I'd guess that they could have some of the same (proposed) negative effects. Bonus points if the alternative is widely available (I see potential options like avocado oil and ghee, which may not be in my local stores).
Edit: To clarify, the following oils are ALSO very high in PUFAs and thus might have similar issues to soybean oil: grapeseed, safflower, sunflower, corn, walnut, cottonseed. Somewhat lower but still fairly high in PUFAs: sesame, canola, peanut. Finally, some oils are low in PUFAs but not suitable for the same uses as soybean oil. Olive oil is one of these.