Many people are either confused or just oblivious to which fats are good for you and which are bad. This thread is to clear that up once and for all.

Good fats and Oils

For cooking or panfrying:
Butter
Clarified butter (butter melted and water and opaque particles separated leaving a CLEAR liquid)
Olive oil
Sesame seed oil, light or dark
Coconut oil
Lard
fat that occurs in natural meats and poultry

For Baking:
Almond oil
Butter
Canola oil
Clarified butter
Lard

For Salads:
Avocado oil
Almond oil
Canola oil
Hazelnut oil
Macadamia nut oil
Olive oil
Sesame seed oil, dark or light
Walnut oil
Flax seed oil

Good Supplemental Oils:
Flax seed oil (store away from light and refrigerate and never heat it)
Sardine oil (and other fresh marine oils)
Cod-liver oil ( treat the same as flax oil)
Capsules of fish oil, flax, DHA (oil from cold water fish), EPA(omega3 fatty oil from cold water fish)

Bad Fats:
Corn oil
Vegetable cooking oils
Margarine
Vegetable shortening
Partially hydrogenated oils of any kind

So, there you have it, eat and cook with the good fats and try very hard to totally avoid the bad ones!

awesome!!

Thanks Celadon!

That's good information.

I didn't know corn oil was bad!!

I grew up with my dad cooking with lard. I started using vegetable oil because I thought it was better. Why is veggitable oil bad? I have already made the switch from margarine to butter. Guess it's time to go buy some lard. Maybe I'll even get a small cast iron skillet. Dad made everything in those.

Two simple words, vegetable oils are loaded with Trans-fatty acids.


Manufacturers love trans fats--which usually appear on labels under the guise Of "partially hydrogenated vegetable oil"--because they help make packaged foods crunchy, crispy, and/or creamy and extend product shelf life at the same time. Yet the risk of TFAs to the heart may be even more serious than that posed by the saturated fats in meats, cheese, butter, and other animal products.

The genesis of trans fats started about 100 years ago, when manufacturers came up with the idea of turning inexpensive vegetable oils into solid fats that would function like more expensive butter or lard but have a longer shelf life. To achieve this alchemy, they figured out a way to add hydrogen atoms to unsaturated fatty acids in oils, enabling the oils to stay solid at room temperature. And so the process of hydrogenation was invented. Soon the world had the first product made with hydrogenated fats: Crisco, introduced in 1911. But the chemical reaction involved produces a type of fatty acid with a twist in its chain of carbon atoms--a trans fatty acid.

Because of its unnatural shape, a trans fat behaves like a saturated fat, only worse. Both saturated fats and trans fats raise "bad" LDL cholesterol. But trans fats also lower "good" HDL cholesterol. This worsens the LDL-to-HDL ratio, a prime indicator of heart-disease risk. In addition, consuming trans fats increases levels of small, dense LDL cholesterol in the bloodstream; these particles enter arterial walls easily and promote the formation of artery-clogging plaque.

In an analysis of data collected in the 1980s during the large-scale Nurses' Health Study by the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, women with the highest intake of trans fatty acids had a 27 percent greater risk of heart disease than women with the lowest intake. In addition, researchers found that an increase of as little as 2 percent in TFAs resulted in a higher risk for type 2 diabetes; consuming polyunsaturated fats, such as safflower oil, reduced diabetes risk.

So, whenever possible, reduce your intake of vegetable and corn oils or better yet, stop using them altogether!

Wow, Celadon that is amazing. I find your knowledge of these things wonderful and so helpful to us. Who would think we could cook with lard. That was my MeMe main staple in the kitchen, she cooked everything with lard or salt pork.
Antoinette

Got me convinced! I'm switching back to lard. Have already switched to real butter. So the next question is....do you have to refrigerate lard? I can't remember.

word of caution on buying lard---most are partially hydrogenated---

it is so very easy to render your own lard---I do this by buying scrap fat from a local butcher---pork is the one I choose

your local walmart won't have the fat---but a small local grocery store should--I am lucky to have a slaughter house near my home where I get things like the fat and bones, hooves, etc for making excellent stocks


Celadon---thanks for this list---and I'm very happy to see that you have included such wonderful things as lard on the good fats list---kudos to you!!!

Bama, step in anytime to clarify! (no pun intended!) Your knowledge always amazes me and I am really trying to get folks to understand that we need to get back to a simpler way of preparing foods. I didn't even think about explaining about the lard. I have rendered lard since I was a kid. My grandmother wouldn't use anything else in her prize winning pie crusts!

Lard should be refrigerated. It can go rancid just like any other fat. I actually freeze it in small amounts and take the packages out and put them in the fridge one at a time.

aw shucks Celadon...thanks:love0034:


another little tidbit about fats....

Eating salad vegetables with some added fat promotes the absorption of lycopene, alpha- and beta-carotenes.

A recent study conducted by Wendy White, associate professor of food science and nutrition at Iowa State University, shows that eating salad vegetables with some added fat promotes the absorption of lycopene, alpha- and beta-carotenes, all of which aid in the fight against cancer and heart disease.

On the flip side, eating a salad completely devoid of fat deprives your body of these beneficial substances. Likewise, you can eat a handful of carrot sticks, but without the accompanying ranch dressing or dip, your body can kiss the beta-carotene goodbye.

White's findings are published in the August issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.


so saute those veggies in some butter, coconut oil or other added fats. Use full fat dressings on your salads--or make a great vinaigrette. Squeeze all the great nutrients out of your veggies you can. your body will love you for it.