Busting cooking oil myths - Guest blog with NutriCoachMumma (Pt 1)
Knowing what cooking oil to buy can be a difficult choice. With supermarket shelves packed full of different oils in different bottles, sprays and tins just choosing what to buy can be mind boggling. Which oil is best for our and our family’s health, which is the best quality, which is the best value?
To help makes sense of what we see on the shelves and bust some of the myths around cooking oils we enlisted the help of an expert - qualified Nutritionist and chef Lizzi Owiredu, aka NutriCoachMumma.
So let’s get started…
In your opinion which are the “healthiest” cooking oils and why?
The types of cooking oils that will be most useful for the body are those that are high in useful fats, a type of cholesterol which helps fuel the body and contributes to long-term heart health. Rapeseed and sunflower oils are high in these, so I would say they are the “healthiest”. Although I prefer to use the terms ‘useful’, ‘helpful’ or ‘beneficial’ as one of my mantras is “there are no good or bad foods, they just do different things in our bodies”. As I encourage a mindful, non-restrictive approach to eating and food behaviours. There is a place for everything in balance with other nutrients consumed.
The health benefits of rapeseed oil that I think are really important for overall health are:
It is a brilliant source of essential Fatty Acids (Omegas 3, 6 and 9) for any type of diet; vegan/ vegetarian/ pescatarian etc. and caters for those with allergies…see below for some more info on those essential fatty acids
It is full of Vitamin E, plant oils are among the most abundant source of this super anti-oxidant nutrients. See below for some Vitamin E info
It is a source of useful fats and is low in fats that the body does not need much more of, like saturated fat and trans fats which can lead to poor heart health, obesity and metabolic syndromes. Rapeseed has lowest levels of saturated fats compared to other oils, especially when compared to coconut oil (see chart below)
It has a high smoke point, so can be used to cook at all temperatures without releasing free-radicals which can cause cancer. It also keeps the nutrients available for the body to absorb.
It is loaded with Phytosterols, which help cells function and our immune systems work well
Are cooking oils important in weaning and children’s diets?
They can be used and can be a useful and easy source of fats that are important for the body. It’s good to have a look into the type of oil you are using for your family so you know what it’s going to do in everyone’s body and the long-term health benefits.
It’s really important to use an oil with a high smoking point if you are going to be cooking your baby’s or family’s food in it. Rapeseed oil has a high smoking point so you can be confident that your family is going to be getting all the nutrients from it and there won’t be free-radicals released which can cause long-term health affects like cancer.
It is also important to note that you shouldn’t give deep fried foods to babies under 1 year old as the focus during this weaning time, is on trying different tastes of foods and this can alter tastes and future preferences of those foods.
Rapeseed oil contains Omega 3, 6 & 9. How important are they in our diet?
Omega 3, 6 and 9 are all essential fatty acids, which means we have to source them from our diet; our bodies do not produce them naturally or get them from anywhere else.
They are important for our hearts, brains and eyes to function well. If we do not consume enough of these essential fatty acids we might feel tired and find it difficult to concentrate and learn.
Rapeseed oil has the highest levels of Omega-3 of all plant oils. It also provides the perfect balance of Omega-6:3.
There is a lot of miscommunication about the actual scientific studies on Omega-6.
The most common Omega-6 is linolenic acid (there's other types), which can be converted into another fatty acid called arachidonic acid, which is harmful for the body but the body converts very little linolenic acid into arachidonic acid, even when linolenic acid is abundant in the diet. Studies have actually shown that eating more Omega-6 didn't increase inflammation in the body, it actually reduced inflammation markers or left the markers unchanged!
There are loads of studies that show that the rate of heart disease decreases as omega 6 consumption increases e.g. a meta-analysis of six randomised trials found that replacing saturated fat with omega-6 fats reduced the risk of heart attacks and other coronary events by 24%.
Rapeseed oil is a good source of Vitamin E, is it important in our diet?
Yes, it’s super important to help our skin and immune response. It acts as an antioxidant by stopping harmful free radicals cause damage to cells, this damage can cause cancer. It is important to eat food sources of it paired with useful fats as it’s a fat soluble vitamin, this means the body needs fat to absorb vitamin E. A really practical way to do this is by cooking your vegetables that are high in fat soluble vitamins (bell peppers and spinach for example) in oil which is high in useful fats; this will help your body absorb the vitamin E.
Reference links:
https://www.intuitiveeating.org/resources/studies/
Romano, K. A., Swanbrow Becker, M. A., Colgary, C. D., & Magnuson, A. (2018). Helpful or harmful? The comparative value of self-weighing and calorie counting versus intuitive eating on the eating disorder symptomology of college students. Eating and Weight Disorders – Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity. doi:10.1007/s40519-018-0562-6: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30155857/
Bégin C, Carbonneau E, Gagnon-Girouard MP, Mongeau L, Paquette MC, Turcotte M, Provencher V (2018.). Eating-Related and Psychological Outcomes of Health at Every Size Intervention in Health and Social Services Centers Across the Province of Québec. Am J Health Promot. 2018 Jan 1:890117118786326. doi: 10.1177/0890117118786326: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29986603/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4837738/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128181881000074
https://ojafr.ir/main/attachments/article/150/OJAFR%2010(6)%20297-301,%202020.pdf
https://lipidworld.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12944-020-01330-7
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0023643820300669
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13197-019-04193-8
https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/no-need-to-avoid-healthy-omega-6-fats