cooked vs raw fats

[tai4ji2x]

is the fat in say, roasted almonds, actually detrimental to you in any way? i know it's probably not as good as raw almonds, but my mom (who does a lot of the shopping here at home) can get the roasted ones in bulk a bit easier. plus she likes the roasted taste better.

same goes with cooked oils vs. uncooked. much of my food is stir-fried, chinese style. thus the oil isn't in its original raw form anymore. i still take in some raw oils (flax, olive, hemp) in shakes and salads, etc and also some raw nuts occasionally.

just wondering if having much of my fat sources in cooked form is actually that much worse than raw sources?

 

[vicious]

Depends on cooking method and the polyunsaturated content in the oil. Fry only with olive oil, but in generaly don't fry. But I don't think roasted nuts are harmful.

cheers,
Jules

 

[Aaron_F]

Depends on what oil/fat the roasted nut is roasted in.

Eat raw nuts if possible, or blanched.

Dont fry with extra virgin olive oil, tis too nice to destroy

 

[tai4ji2x]

Quote[/b] (vicious @ Dec. 23 2002,12:21)]Depends on cooking method and the polyunsaturated content in the oil.

at home here we usually stir-fry, chinese style. using mostly corn or canola oil. sometimes olive (regular, not virgin) for stir-frying non-"asian" things. can you clarify for me about the polyunsaturated bit?

aaron_f : yeah, that extra-virgin olive oil is something, isn't it? sometimes i'm almost tempted to dump half the bottle onto my pasta or salad.

 

[Reven]

Take a look at this link atWeight Trainer about fats. It's a good read and there is a bit on cooking fats in there too.
From what I understand it's all a matter of how warm you cook the fats, and polyunsaturates having the lowest cooking tolerance.
I can't see why so many people like extra virgin olive oil, honestly I have gotten kind of tired of it and have taken a break (unlike eggs and Tabasco). Maybe it is because I was eating 4 tbsp a day? Although I do like cottage cheese and most people seem to hate it. Maybe it is just that the people who try cottage cheese are trying a bad batch/brand I eat enough of the stuff to have noticed that you can get all different textures and even flavors in the same type of cottage cheese (and know I didn’t grab a different fat% on accident I have checked).... WHOA started to go a little off topic.

Now if cooking EFAs is so bad then wouldn't cooking salmon or another high fat fish not be a good idea? Well maybe not baking or boiling but frying would be? I think I'm asking rhetorical questions?

Steve

 

[vicious]

I wonder that too, but it seems to me that saturated fat or vitamin E within the fat helps leaven the oxidization from cooking salmon. A filet of salmon does cook quickly though.

Quote[/b] ]using mostly corn or canola oil.

Hate to tell you this, but those oils are already bad for you because the refinement process has converted the polyunsaturated fats in there to trans fatty acids. You'll be better off switching to olive oil, spray or using butter.

Some cottage cheese I've tried frankly tastes like melted snot. It's the one with the "creamy curds." Dis-gus-ting.

I'm not a big fan of extra virgin olive oil. Very pungent and not a little bitter, even the fresh stuff. Regular olive oil is much milder, though higher in saturated fat.

cheers,
Jules

 

[tai4ji2x]

Quote[/b] (vicious @ Dec. 24 2002,1:49)]Hate to tell you this, but those oils are already bad for you because the refinement process has converted the polyunsaturated fats in there to trans fatty acids. You'll be better off switching to olive oil, spray or using butter.

yeah, i've been trying to convince my mom to lay off the corn oil when cooking. but she's used to it and she's the thrifty type that buys jugs of that @#$% in bulk. i didn't know that those oils were already inherently bad because of the processing though.

 

[tai4ji2x]

reven, thanks for the weightrainer article. it's quite informative. when jules/vicious told me about the no-no's of frying with canola and corn oil, i started thinking about what the heck my chinese ancestors used to fry with, then? well, i asked my parents and sure enough, i looked back at the article and it corroborated their answer: peanut oil! sure, it's perhaps not the healthiest fat overall, but if you're gonna fry, i guess it's not all that bad. it's so sad, thinking about how many aspects of our "modern" diet are detrimental to us, one of them being our use of refined and processed fats. peanut and olive oils have been around for i guess several millennia and yet we've now opted for the highly processed and refined oils of today.

 

[restless]

If I ever fry anything I'll use coconut oil, it's saturated so it stays stable.

As far as I'm concerned all supermarket oils are poison, except extra virgin olive oil. I wouldn't touch anything else.

Nuts should be eaten raw. The heat will destroy (at least in the case of walnuts) their omega 3 content.

 

[tai4ji2x]

Quote[/b] (restless @ Dec. 25 2002,9:32)]Nuts should be eaten raw. The eat will destroy (at least in the case of walnuts) their omega 3 content.

almonds are mostly monounsaturated oleic acid (like olives) though, so my assumption is that at least the fat content is relatively intact even after roasting?

this rules out soy nuts now though, because of its high efa content.

 

[Aaron_F]

Quote[/b] (vicious @ Dec. 24 2002,5:49)]Hate to tell you this, but those oils are already bad for you because the refinement process has converted the polyunsaturated fats in there to trans fatty acids

While they are not the best source of fats, not all the PUFAs will be converted, otherwise it wouldnt be an oil, as trans are generally solid at room temp.

Quote[/b] ]I'm not a big fan of extra virgin olive oil. Very pungent and not a little bitter, even the fresh stuff. Regular olive oil is much milder, though higher in saturated fat.

Its also much lower in phytochemicals, which are extremely good for ya In theory, you shouldnt even get extra virgin that is stored in glass containers, becasue it will knock out most of the phytochemicals. Dark glass or tin container are the normal ones to maintain a green look to the oil.

Quote[/b] ]i started thinking about what the heck my chinese ancestors used to fry with, then? well, i asked my parents and sure enough, i looked back at the article and it corroborated their answer: peanut oil! sure, it's perhaps not the healthiest fat overall,

They also used sesame oil and the likes, because of the alternating flavours. And also, why aint it healthy. Peanut oil is predominantly n-9 fats, or Oleic Acid if you want to go that way. And while it has no n-3 compared to its n-6 content, that isnt much of a worry unless you have no other intake of fat. It also tastes dang good, well when compared to flax....

 

[restless]

Quote[/b] (Aaron_F @ Dec. 26 2002,11:08)]In theory, you shouldnt even get extra virgin that is stored in glass containers, becasue it will knock out most of the phytochemicals.

Don't you mean in plastic containers?

 

[Aaron_F]

Dont know how you get it in europe, but in NZ we get it in glass or steel
ie

I dont think I have actually seen it in plastic here (apart from possibly generic supermarket rubbish, but even then I aint sure).

 

[restless]

We too get it in glass, but I've seen it on 5 liters plastic containers so that's why I asked. I know olive oil shouldn't be exposed to light but unfortunately here they almost always use transparent glass.

 

[tai4ji2x]

argh, i'm gonna have to do some shopping on my own... i told my mom about peanut oil, and she went and bought a bulk bottle from a costco's, but it's refined peanut oil.

i've done some research though. peanut oil was only brought to china via the west (and thus from the americas) during the ming dynasty. before that, sesame, rapeseed, perilla, and other seed oils were used. and of course, lard

however, frying, even stir-frying, was usually not a cuisinary method for the common man in ancient times. steaming and boiling were the methods of choice, both for energy efficiency and cost. (oil in the old days was expensive, even in the richest periods of chinese history) thus the source of EFA's came from soy (in which case only reaches boiling temperatures), vegetables, nuts/seeds, and fish. meat, as most people know, was not common amongst the agriculturally-developed yet still poor peasantry.