For people who are on dieting, fat seems to be the #1 enemy in their food consumption. Obviously the source of fat is coming from oil. Either we have a wrong conception over the characteristic and importance of oil; or we have been too intimidated with the information we always heard about the negative effect that oil had brought. In order to discover the wrong perception, hope the cooking oil knowledge can help everyone, even to those who is not on diet!

I used to have the same misunderstanding towards how bad is the oil, and try to minimize it whatever I ate. Not much to do with health conscious, but just because of scare of gaining weight. We tend to be more concern on the size of our body and eventually ignore the essentials fact of oil that contributes in our body healthiness.

The Health Facts of Fats and Oils

Many of us could have thought that fats is bad to our health. In fact, it creates negative effect only when we have an imbalance diet - either too less or too much consumption.

Basically, fats are major structural components in cell membranes. Fats stored under the skin will help to prevent water loss from our body. Hence, people who have dry skin or scurfy coat may due to deficiency of fats (fatty acids). Of course, if too much of skins will cause obesity on the other hand.

Cooking Oil Selection

Since cooking oil play the major part in our daily diet, using correct cooking oil is very important. Before moving to the discussion on how to choose a suitable cooking oil type, we shall first learn some basic terms that associated with it.

Cholesterol: Essential for body's functioning and divided into low-density lipoprotein (LDL), bad cholesterol; and high-density lipoprotein (HDL), good cholesterol. However, risk of developing cardiovascular disease will be higher if the blood cholesterol level is too high in our body. In fact, oil itself does not contain cholesterol but helps to promote the formation of cholesterol in the body.

Unsaturated Fat: Consider good for health, as they do not increase the levels of bad cholesterol. It can be in the form of monounsaturated or polyunsaturated. Classification: Good Fat

Monounsaturated Fatty Acid (MUFA): The health fatty acid which lowers the level of bad cholesterol without lowering the level of good cholesterol. Classification: Good Fat

Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid (PUFA): Unlike MUFA, it lowers the level of both bad and good cholesterol. If good cholesterol level is lowered down, it will increase the risk of developing heart disease. Classification: Good Fat

Saturated Fat: It will raise the total blood cholesterol including LDL (bad cholesterol), thereby promotes the formation of blood clots, heart disease and stroke. Classification: Bad Fat

Trans fat: A type of unsaturated fat with trans isomer fatty acid. It is not required by the body and no beneficial for health. In fact, trans fat raise LDL (bad cholesterol) and lower HDL (good cholesterol), therefore increase risks of coronary heart disease. Classification: Bad Fat

Refined Oil: Oil that have been stripped of most taste and likely are light in color. It increases the smoke points, hence suitable for frying food. Smoke point is the temperature which oil can be heated before it decompose and create smoke. Classification: Lower nutritional quality but suitable for high temperature cooking

Unrefined Oil: Opposite to refined oil, unrefined oil have lower smoke points, hence it is not suitable for frying or it will cause unpleasant tastes and odors to the food. However, unrefined oil tends to have greater nutritional qualities if compare to the refined oil. Classification: High nutritional quality but not suitable for high temperature cooking

As we can see from the above, different classification will help us to know how to choose a health cooking oil. For instant, oil that contains higher MUFA is the better choice. Yet, understanding the classification of oil is just not enough because different types of oil may best use for different method of cooking due to its smoke point levels (frying, steaming, dressing etc). We shall further discuss on this topic in my next hub.