Olive Oil Price Hikes, What Are the Best Alternatives?

EuroWeekly News ^ | 01 Mar 2024 | John Ensor

[Veto!]

My husband was a diabetic and I don’t recall any problem with olive oil. I use it because I don’t even eat butter or cheese, which are saturated fats. I never deepfry anything, just cook very slowly. Nice skinless chicken thigh tonight with sliced mushrooms in the pan too.

From AboutOliveOil.net:

Cooking with olive oil, even under high heat, does not create trans fats. In fact, olive oil is the most stable liquid cooking fat and naturally has a high resistance to breaking down under heat.

Consumers are wise to want to avoid trans fats in their diets. According to Harvard Medical School, trans fats are “the worst type of dietary fat”. Trans fats are not regarded as safe by the Food and Drug Administration, and in 2015, the FDA banned artificial trans fats from foods in the USA (though you may still find them in the food supply).

Artificial trans fats are formed during partial hydrogenation, a process that converts unsaturated fats into saturated fats with an extended shelf life. Hydrogenation, complete or partial, is a chemical process in which hydrogen is pumped into liquid oils to turn them into a solid or semi-solid form. The process is preformed in a pressurized chamber and requires a catalyst such as nickel. Trans fats are a byproduct of partial hydrogenation.

Does frying with olive oil create trans fats?

Cooking oils do not hydrogenate or create trans fats during home cooking, even beyond the smoke point.

A 1999 study published in the International Journal of Fats and Oils fried potatoes in olive oil at 356°F for 15 minutes. The oil was reused 8 times and sampled after each use. Even after being used 8 times, less than 0.002% trans fatty acids were formed.
A study, published in 2012 in the Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice, heated canola oil, a relatively unstable polyunsaturated fat, to 527°F (significantly past its smoke point of 400°F) and found that cooking, even at extreme temperatures, did not create trans fats.
A 2015 study conducted in South Korea, published in Toxicol Res, analyzed the effects of baking, stir-frying, pan-frying and deep frying on corn oil which contained a trace amount of natural trans fats. The study found that after cooking with corn oil, the increase in trans fats was so low that the foods could legally be listed as free of trans fats.
Olive oil does not contain any trans fats to begin with and since the fat in olive oil is primarily monounsaturated, it is less likely to oxidize when heated. Oxidation creates the unstable conditions where oil starts to break down chemically. Monounsaturated fats and saturated fats are naturally resistant to oxidation
.
Extra virgin olive oil is the most stable liquid cooking fat because of the high percentage of monounsaturated fat and the antioxidants that protect the oil from breakdown.

[whitney69]

“Extra virgin olive oil is the most stable liquid cooking fat because of the high percentage of monounsaturated fat and the antioxidants that protect the oil from breakdown.”

Thank you for the information. My better two thirds also uses EVOO. As the person doing the cooking for a diabetic you, I’m sure, are aware of the many shortfalls of success with food consumption. Mix that with stress, how much exercise the previous day, sleep amounts, and food consumed, and it becomes a nightmare of trying to play carb roulette for people with sugar problems. Then their’s the problem with insilin resistence that seems to have a mind of its own. Crap shoot sometimes.

The question from the original thread was lookng for alternatives to olive oil. Like I posted, they are out there. How successfull, available, or pricey they are is going back to the roulette table.

I’ve been playing the game for almost 40 years now. I can’t promise any day my numbers won’t go through the roof or dump on the floor to way too low which is what happened to me a couple of times. Last time there were 7 firemen in the room reviving me. I hurt for days.

But, that’s part of the game and I expect it all. Do I like it? Absolutely not. But there ain’t much choice is there? All diabetics play the game and there’s roughly 39 million of us in the US as determined by the American Diabetic Association in 2021. I’m sure that number has grown since then. Wish it didn’t, but I’ve got only the say of my number.

wy69

[Veto!]

If you eat wheat, you might want to read this book: Wheat Belly by Wm Davis, MD:

“I n this #1 New York Times bestseller, a renowned cardiologist explains how eliminating wheat from our diets can prevent fat storage, shrink unsightly bulges, and reverse myriad health problems.

“Every day, over 200 million Americans consume food products made of wheat. As a result, over 100 million of them experience some form of adverse health effect, ranging from minor rashes and HIGH BLOOD SUGAR to the unattractive stomach bulges that preventive cardiologist William Davis calls “wheat bellies.” According to Davis, that excess fat has nothing to do with gluttony, sloth, or too much butter: It’s due to the whole grain wraps we eat for lunch.”

I read the book several years ago. I was never overweight, but I was taking a statin. Gave up wheat and within two months my LDL was normal and never went up again. I get wonderful BFree Seed Bread at local health store, not wheat bread with seeds, but 100% seeds. Delish. Walmart online has it too.
And I only eat Panda Puffs cereal;, no wheat, no GMOs and Organic.

Anyway, some of this info may (or may not) help you. I know your doc probably wants you to eat wheat, but you might want to try the alternative for a month or two and see what happens.

[whitney69]

“I know your doc probably wants you to eat wheat...”

My doc wants me to eat anything because I eat less than I should. And between the meds and my inability to exercise, I have no appetite. But thinks to insilun resistance, everything I eat goes to the torso along with moisture and congestion of hert failure. If I was able to exercise, without going down, the gainng of diatery fiber though wheat would be beneficial. But I don’t eat much of that either. (Neither wheat or beneficial)

Food has lost it’s magic for me. I used to love food and have tried everything from escargo in Europe and ceviche in Mexico, to prime rib in Texas and crab in Alaska. Now it’s fruit, veggies, and vitamins. (Horse pills) But I’ve got my memories and they still make my mouth water.

wy69