Team-BHP - The Oil Thread (cooking, not engine)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ARAY (Post 4471726)

A close friend of mine who deals with and is wholesale supplier of edible oil in entire Telengana belt often talks about how harmful refined oil is. He shares this with all his cleints and customers just to educate the ill effects of refined oil.

By any chance, does your friend deal in our beloved "Sorsher tel"? Have been trying for a long time to find a mill that deals with Kachhi Ghani mustard oil in/around Hyderabad, but without luck. Almost all of them deal in groundnut and sesame oil exclusively.
Wouldn't mind taking a short (~50-100 kms) trip to get the good stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by revvenant (Post 4471778)

Sure , I can get you in touch with him , please PM me and we can take it offline.

AT our home it is a alternate cycle of Sunflower oil and Rice Bran oil. Amma had told rice bran is good. I love coconut oil, wife hates it. So these are the 2 we stick to.
As a rule of thumb, my take is anything processed in a factory is bad. I have visited lot of Atta plants and seen how Maida is made and how dal is polished. Since then I have given up on Maida and as non-veg cannot be made at home, have not found a substitute to dal.
Maida is chemically bleached with a chemical that is banned in almost 60 countries, but in India we happily use them.

My two cents

As some of the posters have already mentioned, its recommended to use the oil which the family has been using for generations. I recently attended a session conducted by a ayurvedic/natural healing practitioner who explained the reasons from a slightly different perspective

Traditionally, people in our country have been using different kinds of oils native to the land like mustard oil, groundnut oil, coconut and sesame oils. Again the original traditional way of obtaining these oils was by cold pressing.
Through generations, the genetic make-up of the body is built to take this kind of food without any unwanted health effects (if eaten in a normal way without glutting). Extending this logic, it was also mentioned that rice do not do any additional harm to South Indians and so is wheat to North since their genetic make-up is compatible with this kind of intake. (Japanese eat a lot of rice and they are one of the most healthiest country with max number of people in the 100+ age bracket.)

As others on this thread have highlighted, anything refined/processed is not naturally good for the body and creates inflammation which leads to most of the diseases/illnesses we see in the modern day.

So using the oils one has grown with in the traditional cold pressed/non-refined format will serve the health best.

Growing up, we used to get cold pressed groundnut oil from the local dealers in those 20-25 litre tin cans which was used for all purposes. After marriage we switched over to the refined sun flower oil. But after recent awareness, we switched back to cold pressed groundnut oil. Its not too difficult to find it here in old Bangalore markets like Gandhi Bazaar or Malleswaram. Same goes with Ghee, stopped using processed yellow butters from Amul and others and started producing butter at home or buying unprocessed white butter from local markets

I have friends in Bangalore who are from Mangalore and use coconut oil in homes. Most of these folks go to their natives once in a month or so and get coconuts from their own trees and trade them for oil in the local mills and get that oil for cooking.

Historically we Indians have tended to use oils grown locally. So in the south it was coconut and til, in the north it was mustard and groundnut was a newer entrant in the middle and west.
Ghee made from cows milk, in moderation, has excellent health benefits as per ayurveda.

So there are genetic adaptations in the population to such local oils. The problems start when folks move out of their original areas or diet patterns.

Olive oil is the newest fad being pushed by the marketing whizkids. I doubt if it is as great as it is being made out to be.

The best points are : reduce oil consumption, avoid refined oils. And avoid multi oil blends.

My view, avoid any oil as much as you can. Replace with Ghee wherever possible. That being said you need to burn whatever you eat even if its the healthiest of food's thats available on the planet. My learning has been sweating early in the morning (Or any other time of the day) detoxifies your body which helps in nullifying the effects of any un-healthy food that you might have eaten.

Have been working on this for a couple of years now. This is what my Garmin App Vo2 Max Says (Fitness age of 20) :D

The Oil Thread (cooking, not engine)-screenshot_20181004084640.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VO2_max

The average untrained healthy male will have a VO2 max of approximately 35–40 mL/(kg·min).[15][16] The average untrained healthy female will score a VO2 max of approximately 27–31 mL/(kg·min).[15] These scores can improve with training and decrease with age, though the degree of trainability also varies very widely: conditioning may double VO2 max in some individuals, and will never improve it in others. In one study, 10% of participants showed no benefit after completing a 20-week conditioning program, although the other 90% of the test subjects all showed substantial improvements in fitness to varying degree.[17][18]

In sports where endurance is an important component in performance, such as cycling, rowing, cross-country skiing, swimming and running, world-class athletes typically have high VO2 maxima. Elite male runners can consume up to 85 mL/(kg·min), and female elite runners can consume about 77 mL/(kg·min).[19] Five time Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain is reported to have had a VO2 max of 88.0 at his peak, while cross-country skier Bjørn Dæhlie measured at 96 mL/(kg·min).[20] Dæhlie's result was achieved out of season, and physiologist Erlend Hem who was responsible for the testing stated that he would not discount the possibility of the skier passing 100 mL/(kg·min) at his absolute peak. Norwegian cyclist Oskar Svendsen is thought to have recorded the highest VO2 max of 97.5 mL/(kg·min), when aged 18.[21]

Many answers and there are some points which are common in many posts.
All oils have some detrimental effect cardiologically. There is nothing like a healthy oil - there could be at best a "less dangerous". oil. I try to use as little oil as possible

My personal preference:
- Prefer cold pressed oils
- Mustard, Coconut, groundnut in rotation (everytime different from previous) as normal everyday cooking medium
- Tirugamota (Tadka) with cow ghee. Cow ghee also for abhikaranam (sprinkling on rice)
- Olive oil for the occasional pasta
- Sesame oil for pickles. Also in oil lamps for puja.

Practical Issues:
- Cold pressed oils are very expensive
- Not available easily everywhere. I am buying 24 Mantra brand for Mustard and Groundnut oils from Bigbasket (online supermarket). There are many for Virgin Cold Pressed coconut oil in Bigbasket.
- Coconut oil leaves a faint aroma in food - it is a hit or miss. If there are any guests, I will use another oil instead of coconut oil.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 4470534)

Guys, simple question = what oil to use for cooking at home?

It seems, after sugar, refined oil is the next bad thing for your health. But haven't been able to get a clear answer, so thought of asking on my favourite community :).

Which is the best / most healthy / least evil oil to use for cooking at home? Cooking consists of typical Indian meals. Which should be my kitchen's Mobil 1 :D?

Someone told me olive oil is good, but this post and some other ones say otherwise.

Thanks!

GTO, Thank you for bringing out this discussion. We at home use Groundnut oil and Sesame oil for cooking. Desi cow ghee (Made at home) as a topping for Dal and Sambhar. Both groundnut and sesame oils are cold pressed in the traditional ghani. We including 2-3 families of close relatives buy groundnut and sesame seed in bulk for every 6 months and get the oil extracted. We also take away the oil cakes as a feed for cattle and pay the Ghani owner for the amount of seeds crushed.

I know this is cumbersome process but this way we can ensure purity.

Coming to sugar. We buy sugarcane jaggery and palm jaggery directly from individual farmers who produce them in their farm. White sugar is a strictly NO-NO in my home.

Both groundnut and sesame oils are very good for cooking. Infact sesame oil due to it's low cholestrol property is the Indian version of Olive oil.

There are lot of small entrepreneurs and farmer groups who sell their ghani pressed oils online. One such is https://www.gramiyum.in/ and there are lot many. To ensure the purity of oil one can shake the bottle/can then open the cap. You can smell the nut/seed out of which the oil is extracted. Ex- Remember the aroma you get when you chew the raw&dried groundnut, you should get the same aroma when you smell the groundnut oil.

Disclaimer: I have no association with the above website nor with the owners of the website.

Lot has been said on this thread, adding few cents based on my 3 years’ experience with LCHF.
• At my home we use only Desi Ghee, Butter & Coconut oil and we use it generously no calorie counting
• Do not use any oil which says “REFINED” on its label. Refined means its cheap and we know what cheap things do to our engines :) Most of the Cold press oils are better option
• For high temperature Indian style cooking use stable fats like Desi Ghee or Coconut oils these two fats have the highest smoke point
• Do not waste your hard earned money on Olive oils as most of the brands imported (from Spain, Tunisia, Greece and even Italy) in India even in the USA is found to be adulterated . Real good stuff is really expensive. Pomace Olive oil is cheap to buy as its the lowest grade of oil one can find, simply don’t use it
• It’s a proven myth that high Cholesterol is not caused by eating fats in our diet, the main villain is Sugar (In all kind of shape and forms) limiting it is the only mantra
• Finally, the new US Dietary Guideline has removed restriction on total fat and set limit for added sugars link

Let me put my two cents here.

About 8-10 years back, we used refined oil (soyabean, vegetable & others) and Dalda at our homes. Refined oil was for dal, vegetables, non-veg etc and Dalda was for parantha only. During that time, my mother (who was 45 then) developed knee pain and some other pains at various joints in the body. But the knee pain was severe. So, after consulting an ayurvedic doctor, we switched to Ghee (cow or buffalo) and mustard oil exclusively.

So now, it has been about 10 years. Her knee pain is gone and she can walk long distances easily.
I've used olive oil but only when I make pasta etc at my home, so I really can't comment on that.