You hear so much conflicting information about which fats to eat and which ones to avoid. I gravitate toward the old-fashioned. We eat mostly: butter, lard, tallow, coconut oil and olive oil. You won’t find canola, corn, or other types of liquid oils in my kitchen. Why? Because most of those are highly processed from GMO ingredients. The only liquid oil you’ll find in my pantry is cold pressed olive oil from a small farm in California, which is only used fresh and unheated for drizzling over vegetables and in salad dressings. This is a great article from Real Food Digest to help you choose which oils/fats to use for each application and a 101 on healthy oils.
In my kitchen, local pastured butter and ghee are consumed more than any other type of fat. Coming in a close second is probably lard and tallow (bacon grease included in this list). In third, you’ll find coconut oil, both Expeller Pressed for foods I don’t want a coconut flavor on (potatoes, onions, mushrooms, etc) and Virgin Coconut Oil for those items I do (like muffins, cookies, etc). In fourth cold-pressed organic olive oil from Chaffin Family Orchards in California. I buy 2 gallons each year and rebottle it into wine bottles when it arrives.
What’s your favorite type of fat/oil to use in the kitchen?
If you’d like to read more about healthy fats and traditional eating, pick up a copy of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. You can also find a ton of information at the Weston A. Price Foundation website.
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I use butter, olive oil (both cold pressed EVOO & regular), bacon grease, beef fat, & coconut oil. I used to have some of the unscented coconut oil but I ran out a year ago & havent bought any. I use Pam occasionally too, but not very often. I have it though.
I dont use any other vegetable oils like canola or corn oil with the exception of whatever is in that Pam can. 😉
M’honey uses peanut oil in his turkey frier when he uses it but its been a couple years since we’ve had a fish fry so we’ve used none.
I heard about this book recently http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/olive-oil-basics/extra-virginity-tom-mueller/21780 which lifts the lid on the underhand practices in the olive oil industry. It real pays to be well informed about what you’re buying. I only buy Olive Oil from our local farmers in Martinborough, New Zealand which is just 45 minutes from where we live. I know the people that grow the olives, harvest and press them.
I use olive oil and canola oil. I hadn’t really thought about it much until I read your post. Think I’ll be doing some research now. One question though, how do you store your bacon grease? I’m always afraid that it will go bad and we’ll get sick from using it.
I usually just keep the bacon grease in a little jar beside the stove. I don’t find that it goes bad anytime soon, that’s one of of the good things about saturated fats, they’re more shelf stable. You can store the bacon grease in the fridge if you’re worried about it, it will most likely keep for about a year, though I don’t see how you’ll keep it around that long!
I use rapeseed oil,olive oil and some vegetable oil. Also use butter, goose fat and a little lard.
When we travel to Greece, we visit the olive farm and take back a year supply of olive oil. We are very fortunate to know the source of our oil.
I would love to find out what your cholesterol numbers are like given the types of oils you eat. Have you seen a direct impact on your HDL/LDL/Total cholesterol since you started using these types of oils?
Actually Mr Chiot’s cholesterol was high before we switched, now it’s back to “normal”. Although the more I read about cholesterol numbers and how they lowered the targets right before the cholesterol drugs came out I’m leery of what the powers that be say is healthy. I know if I’m eating food as close to natural as possible I’m doing OK. You might also read up on the fact that canola & soy were the big healthy new products after the GMO versions were developed. After doing a lot of research linking what’s being touted as healthy and lobbying funds I now simply follow the Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats recommendations for eats. Since we started eating more fat (our diet consists of about 40% fat) we’ve both lost weight, haven’t gotten sick, have more energy and in general have a greater sense of health & well-being. I’d also highly recommend reading Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.