Whether you’re roasting a chicken in the oven, browning onions in a pan, or choosing a spread for toast, oils are at the heart of our culinary endeavors.
We have a dizzying array of options. From sunflower to flaxseed, avocado to coconut, around 30 varieties of oil are used in cooking today. The decision you make can have a big impact on your health, your cholesterol, blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular disease.
If you believe the headlines, palm oil is out, sunflower oil is on shaky ground and it seems the benefits that extra virgin olive oil brings to the table are endless. But are these claims backed by solid science? And how do the health effects of these products measure up against the environmental costs?
Satisfied or unsatisfied?
First, some chemistry. Cooking oils contain fats, which are made of long chains of carbon atoms linked together. Saturated fats, found in red meat and dairy products, are so named because each carbon atom is linked to the next by a single bond. The remaining electrons of each carbon atom are available to form bonds with hydrogen atoms, making the molecule completely “saturated” with this element. This structure makes these fats very rigid and stable, which is why butter and lard are solid at room temperature.
Unsaturated fats, usually found in plants and oily fish, have a double bond between adjacent carbon atoms, which reduces the number of bonds that can be…
