Good Comments: Anna on The Dark Side of Deep Fry

Anna had a comment on the Dark Side of Deep Fry Post with which I wholeheartedly agree -- industrial vegetable oils are not your friends. Actually, the topic of cooking oils warrants an entire post. I'll put it on my list. Until then, here are her comments. Thank you, Anna.

Note: PUFA = Polyunsaturated fatty acids; CVD=Cardiovascular Disease

She says:

Not to mention the acrylamide compounds formed when starches are cooked in unstable oils at high temps. Yuck. I avoid fried starchy foods for all sorts of reasons. You can bet paleo humans weren't consuming french fries. Beef tallow is the best fat for high temp cooking in fat. It is more stable than PUFAs, therefore less prone to oxidation, and tastes best. Beef tallow has a long history of safe use by humans, unlike the modern industrial vegetable oils (only a little more than 100 years, similar to the dramatic rise in CVD). And saturated fats are not the cause of CVD, despite the campaign to implicate them. Unstable PUFAs, on the other hand, are implicated in cancer development and other health problems. Even if humans don't consume saturated fats, the body makes saturated fats because they are so necessary for structural materials. Except for some olive oil in uncooked foods, I tend to avoid the common industrial vegetable oils by making my own salad dressings, mayonnaise, etc. The rest of the fats I use are home-rendered lard, coconut oil, and butter. Yum!

Speaking of lard, see Steven F.'s Local Forage post from March on Rendered Fats.