Cooking oils

Having written a small post on the dangers of improper choice of frying oils, I dug a bit deeper, then couldn't stop until I felt I got my head around the cooking oil pantry.


There are several factors when considering an oil:

1. Omega 6 / Omega 3 ratio - always watch out for that.  You won't get to your Omega 3 quota from your frying oils anyway, but we could at least stay away from things like Safflower: 75% PUFA (poly-unsaturated fatty acid), almost all omega 6.
2. PUFA's (were you paying attention? Poly-unsa) become rancid at high heat (see is frying bad for you? for a pretty good answer on the subject), generating trans-fat right in your pan. Yuck!  So minimize the total amount of PUFA's and pay attention to the smoke point.
3. As a corollary, look for an oil with a high amount of saturated and mono-unsaturated fat. Those are your friends.
4. Last but not least: The source of the oil needs to be examined for nutritional value/toxins.  Ever eaten a cottonseed?  No, really! It is not intended for food!

Great.  Now, let's look at that smoke point, using this wikipedia data as a base.

First thing to note: terms like virgin and unrefined sound great and will probably yield more flavor (and likely preserve more of the nutritional value), but they are the enemy of high heat cooking.  Save those for salad dressings.

Next, our friends: saturated fat-based oils:

• Ghee seems to be the winner. Clarified butter, it is devoid of the solids that cause all the burning problems with butter, its enviable (by other oils, I presume!) smoke point is at 482F. You just can't go wrong with ghee.  Check the label for purity and you are ready to roll.
• Lard has a substantial range based on its clarity, from 360 to as high as 420. Look for lard produced via the wet rendering process and avoid the stuff from the supermarket, opting in favor of small high quality operations.  Your grass-fed producer is likely your top choice.  Did you know, lard was used to produce French Fries for the first half of this century?  I am tempted!
• Avocado oil (I've never heard of it till now!) is a win all around.  520F should be enough to satisfy almost any cooking need.  The only oil that comes close is the nutritionally crooken safflower. Does it taste good?  Have you tried it?
• Coconut oil.  The refined kind goes as high as 450F.  The virgin is only good for 350F.  So be a little careful there. 

Note this guide when frying something in a pan: 

                 450-500° high
                 375-400° medium-high
                 325-350° medium
                 275-300° medium-low
                 225-250° low

This means, don't let your virgin coconut oil in a pan that will go above medium heat.  

The only oil I use outside of this family is olive oil.  Its smoke point has a wide range based on the clarity of the oil: 375 for extra-virgin to 468 for extra light. It has a healthy nutritional profile and even boasts tiny amounts of Omega 3's if you enjoy conversations with your conscience.

Still, there is no longer a need for rancid vegetable oils to make your sweet potato fries.

The next step for me is to try them out and decide which tastes better for what purpose.  My money is on ghee.  After all, what adds flavor to food quite like butter?

I included the links to amazon for these oils.  I have the olive oil on a regular subscription, have ordered the coconut oil in the past - and avocado is on the way!
        

Five ways to add fat to your meal

Just in case you are new here, you might be wondering, "ADD FAT??"  Yes, Add Healthy Fat! This means:

•  saturated fat, the storage medium for pure energy employed by animals and humans alike. It is stable, easily accessible and, if you are trying to lose weight, represents the most filling calories you will encounter.  (In other words, replace 500 calories in sugar with 400 calories in fat - you'll be less hungry, avoid those cravings and lose weight. In other words, skip the 500 calorie Jamba Juice and enjoy10 pieces of bacon (40 calories each) - which of those will leave you feeling full?
• Omega 3 fat, available in grass-fed meat, fish oil, macademia nuts.

For more information on relative health value of fats (yes, some fats are actually bad!) see the definitive guide to fats.  A long time ago, when I was first getting started with paleo, I did a bit of digging on saturated fat and found that there is little evidence all the hatred is based on.

Sharing meals with family members who have not been convinced by the paleo argument, I am forced to find extra nutrition to add to meals,  which have been purposefully deprived of it.  Here are my tricks:

1. Home-made beef stock.  In Russia, the quality of the broth was judged by marbling one could see on the surface.  Real broth, not made from a box, will boast beautiful golden marble-lines on its surface.  Preparing it is super-easy:
   
   Buy soup bones at the grocery store, usually sold at $1-$1.50 a lb, optionally get additional bony meat or organ meat.  Place 3 lbs in a crockpot with two cups of water and your favorite spices. Remove the bones.  Strain.  Keep the meat for a future meal.
   
   You will wind up with the richest broth you have ever seen.  Freeze Add it to a lean soup. Thicken it with tapioca or arrowroot powder and use it as gravy for a lean meal.
   
   
2. Rendered bacon or salt pork. Remember bacon bits, that stuff apparently made out of cardboard and vaguely resembling bacon you get on top of salads? What you should do to create flavorful rich bacon to go on top of almost any meal: salad, mashed potatoes (I do sweet potatoes or mashed cauliflower), lean meat dishes, even steak sauce.
   
   Cut bacon into 1/4 inch strips. Stir-fry in a pan until bacon is somewhat crispy and golden-brown. You don't have to get those as crispy as you might a full piece of bacon as with a greater total surface area, less worry about bubbles that never reach the pan, etc, you get far more crispiness even while preserving much of the body that would be absent in a crumbly-crisp piece of bacon.
   
   
3. Coconut! Yes, it's the greatest source of pick-me-up one can have in a diet. Unlike caffeine, it does not leave me jittery, but makes a real difference in what I can accomplish in my day
   
   Add coconut cream or milk to curries, sauces, gravies. Try substituting dairy milk & cream for coconut. Despite similarly hated fat content, coconut just seems to do more for my body than cream can hope for. I am starting to suspect that perhaps non-dairy paleo crowd isn't far off from the truth.
   
   Sprinkle shredded coconut, raw or roasted, on top of any meal that can benefit from a little crunch in its texture. It's particularly good in place of granola on your yogurt. And on those days when you absolutely must have chocolate, make an instant mounds of joy (with much less sugar) by melting the chocolate with shredded coconut.  Or, to skip the mess and make a coconut/chocolate sandwich.
   
   
4. Avocado/ Guacamole. Personally, I think avocado is boring.  It's ok chopped up in salads, but does little for most meals.  Guacamole, on the other hand, is hard.  But it works as a great side/sauce/dip for a lot of different meals, from steak & roast to veggies or crock pot creations. Here is a simplified version that works quite well:
   
   Mash an avocado with a fork. To peel an avocado, cut it into quarters, around the pit, then pull the corners of the peels down, while popping the meat up.  Add several drops of lemon juice, plenty of cumin, salt & pepper. This will do in a pinch, though throwing in chopped onions & tomatoes will go all the way.
   
   
5. Ghee.  What's that?  Clarified butter. It is healthier, a much better grease that tolerates higher
   temperatures and lasts longer and it happens to have greater saturated fat content than butter (you get it by separating the oil from everything else butter contains).  Rub ghee on your steak prior to placing it in a pan; add it to gravies in place of butter, use it to cook or heat up left-overs.  (Oh, and while we are at it - despite everyone being afraid of the fat content in ghee, some studies have shown it actually reduces cholesterol, according to this wikipedia article on ghee).

Each one of these things makes a difference between a meal that leaves me feeling ok and one after which I feel I can fly.

Coconut goodness

I would like to talk about coconut today. Mark's daily apple calls it "Smart fuel". Coconut research center says it's a "functional food" because of how many nutrients it offers us.  While the medical establishment warns us against the dangers of the saturated fat contained in it.

I would like to talk about my experience with various coconut products, the good and the bad, and share my acquired love for coconut.

My favorite coconut product family thus far are coconut milk and cream.  The most exciting part about these is the pure-energy component the provide for my diet.  When tired, I used to turn to coffee and red bull.  Now I make my "magic coconut drinks" as I call them, which provide a longer lasting non-jittery energy that enables me to get through tired afternoons and late nights.  Here they are:

1. Amazing double-coco, which I discovered in the Primal Cookbook.  Use two teaspoons of cocoa, three times as much cold coconut milk. Mix them up and you have consistency of yogurt.  Add boiling water - and you will have hot chocolate unlike any other you've ever tasted. Forget the cardboard taste of Hershey's powder products.  Coconut gives it the rich chocolate flavor you will not find anywhere else.  The best part is, it requires almost no sweetening due to its richness.  (Tip: use the dutch cocoa, which is richer and far less bitter.)
2. Coconut/avocado milkshake.  OK, I have to admit, it did not sound like it could possibly taste good.  I was so surprised, it became my daily afternoon drink, often replacing lunch!  Skip the low-fat yogurt in favor of greek, add some vanilla and stevia to taste.  (Tip: start by blending the avocado till smooth before any other ingredients; ripe avocado is key - or you'll have little avocado bits on your tongue!)

The problem with coconut cream is that it almost always comes sweetened, intended for pina colada.  I recently discovered a great product, coconut cream concentrate, far better on your budget, too! And the first user review confirms my experience with coconut as well:

This stuff is great! I eat it out of the jar with a spoon as a quick pick me up! It's amazing what coconut and coconut oil can do for you! 

Next comes shredded coconut. I use it as a topping for yogurt, in place of shredded cheese in salads and any time I feel my meal is a little too lean for the proper amount of energy I look for.

Another favorite discovery is coconut oil. It is amazing in cooking.  Because of its stability (the good old saturated fat!) it gets much hotter than any other oil you will use.  It sizzles like butter and produces similarly crispy, beautifully browned results, but unlike butter, it will not burn. When making fried chicken, it creates a meal so beautiful and tasty, I can bring it to a holiday table and feel good about myself!

Finally, a word about coconut flour. I do not like it!  It is grainy and refuses to integrate into the texture and flavor of the meal.  I use almond & cashew flour and avoid coconut till further notice.

Things I have not tried:  coconut water (which is supposed to be truly magic and has been used for centuries for a variety of medicinal purposes) and coconut butter that some swear by as a fast snack.

What I would like to do is create a coconut-based power bar. If anyone can think of how to go about it and what it would contain, please leave me a comment.  I am a huge fan of on-the-go no-cook no-mess no-thought convenience of such a thing!

Butter is not a grease

I experimented with the Primal Cookbook's egg muffins recipe.  Basically, you make an omelet (skip the water), pour it into muffin cups and call it breakfast.  Neat idea, yeah?

The Primal Cookbook advocates using butter as a grease. I was a little surprised, but went for it.  Sigh... The muffins stuck to the pan and we wound up eating muffin tops!  They were pretty good, but lesson almost learned.

I tried butter again when cooking chicken legs.  (Usually, I prefer coconut oil, but I am out!) So, I put a little olive oil in, remembering my earlier muffin experience, and added butter. The chicken was yummy, but it lost its skin to the pan, sticking to it mercilessly. The pan was a mess and the chicken, nearly skinless. Still, my kids and I both delight in chicken drumstick and lunch was a complete success.

Have you guys had any luck using butter as a grease? What am I doing wrong?