Despite all of its benefits for our health, avocado oil as a cooking oil is extremely heat stable and one of the best possible oils for high-temperature frying. Here’s why it’s worth changing from all those unhealthy processed oils like cottonseed, soy, corn and canola oil, and even the healthier ones like olive oil, to avocado oil for cooking and frying with.
Smoking Point of Oils
It is very important to consider the smoking point of the oil you are cooking with. The smoking point of an oil is the temperature at which the oil starts to show visible smoke. At this point, the structure of the oil begins to break down and not only are the nutrients lost and the flavor changed, but dangerous compounds can be created that are damaging to our health. Even a healthy oil like olive oil becomes unhealthy when it reaches its smoking point.
Some very beneficial oils like flaxseed oil and pumpkin seed oil should never be used for frying or high-temperature cooking as they have a very low smoking point.
Others, like cheap processed cottonseed oil (420 F), soy oil (unrefined 320F/refined 450F), corn oil (450F) and canola oil (unrefined 225F/refined 400F), may have relatively high smoking points, but can have other health issues like inflammatory fat profiles and toxic residues left over from the chemicals and the extremely high temperatures used in their extraction. Besides all of this, none of these taste anywhere near as good as a high quality avocado oil.
Many people use olive oil for cooking and it is a healthy oil (though perhaps not as healthy as cold pressed avocado oil – see the previous page for a comparison). Unfortunately, olive oil’s smoking point can vary greatly, depending on its grade and level of processing.
Extra virgin olive oil, the type usually considered healthiest and best tasting, can have quite a low smoking point, sometimes listed at only 220 Fahrenheit (105 Celsius), making it completely unsuitable for frying. Despite this, many people do use it to fry with, thinking they’re being healthy. But in fact, once it starts smoking, extra virgin olive oil may become quite unhealthy and full of damaging compounds that lead to free radical damage in our bodies.
Other grades of olive oil usually have a higher smoking point, sometimes cited as high as 460F (238 Celsius). These are usually the ‘light’ varieties. But even these are well below avocado oil’s smoking point, listed at 520F (271 Celsius), making it about the best possible oil for high-temperature frying.
Cooking with Avocado Oil
Cooking with avocado oil make sense. Not only do you have a far lower chance of creating dangerous compounds, even with frying, avocado oil benefits our health with its superior fatty acid profile, phytosterols and high antioxidant content. To top it all off, avocado oil probably tastes far better than just about anything you’ve ever cooked with before.
If you’d like to give cold pressed avocado oil a try for yourself, the next page has details on where to buy avocado oil online that is both good quality and at a low price.
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Photo credit with thanks: the prodigal untitled13