Survey on oil

Which to you use the most?
Peanut oil
Corn oil
Vegetable oil
Olive oil
Saffron oil
Kanola oil
And Why?

Veggie and Olive oil here. We use the veggie oil most because most recipes call for it but we are slowly using the olive oil more. But it's more expensive so we try to make it last.

Over the years I have graduated from Wesson oil (too much taste) thru everything that has come up since I rarely used Crisco or Spry. Have melted margarine and butter and use those occasionally for the good taste they have. Have tried olive oil. It doesn't come in small enough bottles or containers for me. Good olive oil has its own taste that I don't want imparted into my fried foods but is ok for a few things other than actual cooking. Have been using Lou Ana Peanut oil for years now since we lived on the gulf (of Mex) and had a lot of fish to fry and otherwise cook. I see no reason to ever change from peanut oil because it is so good for every use I have for it. It is good to put a teaspoon full in a pan to saute' and also to use a lot for deep frying. It is good for dressings for salads and on and on and on.It doesn't seem to have its own flavor which would inhibit the good taste of the food I'm fixing.

Ann

Over the years I have graduated from Wesson oil (too much taste) thru everything that has come up since I rarely used Crisco or Spry. Have melted margarine and butter and use those occasionally for the good taste they have. Have tried olive oil which like so many oils goes rancid fairly quickly and that is a really horrible experience to taste rancid oil. LOL It doesn't come in small enough bottles or containers for me. Good olive oil has its own taste that I don't want imparted into my fried foods but is ok for a few things other than actual cooking. Have been using Lou Ana Peanut oil for years now since we lived on the gulf (of Mex) and had a lot of fish to fry and otherwise cook. I see no reason to ever change from peanut oil because it is so good for every use I have for it. It is good to put a teaspoon full in a pan to saute' and also to use a lot for deep frying. It is good for dressings for salads and on and on and on.It doesn't seem to have its own flavor which would inhibit the good taste of the food I'm fixing.

Ann

Olive Oil -- cooking Italian dishes, brushing on veges before grilling. Plain for bread dipping.
Vegetable Oil -- deep frying
Peanut Oil -- stir frys
Sesame Oil -- stir frys

Olive oil and vegetable oil.

Olive Oil about 90% of the time. I mimic TV Chefs and try to round up the oils they use. Keep four or five small bottles on hand. Many have use suggestions on label.

I was only introduced to olive oil about five or six years ago. Had to learn to appreciate them any way we now use them. I was born Pennsylania Dutch but will die leaning into a dish of some kind of pasta or home made pastries and breads.

90% olive oils. Occasionally I buy specialty oils like sesame, walnut and grapeseed... but even refrigerated, they go rancid before I can use them up. I sometimes use peanut oil with high heats, and I discovered organic, unfiltered peanut oil actually tastes like roasted peanuts. Mostly I sauté with butter or ghee.

I just had to look up ghee. Now I know.

Sorry folks I left off who still cooks with butter and the Pam products!!!!
What was I thinking??
Where did I leave my brain at???
Somebody take me out back and shoot me!!!!

Doc,My grandmother always called us Pennsylvanian Dutch all my life,tell me what that really means her family was from Michigan and they came to Okla,for the land rush,and she was actually born in that covered wagon,but they lived in the ground in dugout caves ,while they were homesteading.
My dads side also did they same thing but they were Irish.

Pennsylvania Dutch to me always related to my background. Dig deep enough and one comes up with a Dutch German ancestry. There were bunches of them settled between Philadelphia and Harrisburg. They still are! My kin can be followed from there North and West through Pennsylvania and out into Ohio and Ill.

kwanjin, it is easy to make your own ghee. Butter contains 20% water; you just cook that off at a low temp., strain the solids... snd voila! Plus, ghee does not need refrigeration.

Thanks for that. I read that just now and it'll sure be easy to remember.

BTW, I use them all at one time or another.

Butter and Pam rules in this house. LOL

Canola oil My great aunts heart specialist told her this was the oil to use for a healthy heart.

I like stuff cooked in olive oil too.

generic veg oil for frying, olive oil for soup salads, pasta, spinich , dipping, tomatoes, and zucchini, butter for baking and toffee and cream sauces, bacon lard for flavoring beans, potatoes,greenbeans, hamless beans and cornbread, gravy..
Pam for pancoatings, margarine for omelets and pancakes. Real Butter for cheese souffle..

Next time you cook popcorn the ole fashion way,use a little bacon grease!
Oh my god,best you'll ever eat!
Might not be good for you,but once, twice,three times a year,what can I say,but try it!
Never knew so many people used so many different things,my mum,was bacon grease or crisco!
I guess hardly anybody uses Crisco anymore.

I use crisco shortning for biscuits and pie dough...have butter flavored and white .

I grew up on margarine, butter flavored Crisco and veg oil. When I got out into the big world I read cookbooks by the dozens including some books just about food. I read some horrible things about the things I grew up on LOL and have pretty much nixed: veg oil, Crisco and margarine.

The worst oil you can use is Coconut Oil (available at your store and it's what they pop movie theater popcorn in) and next in line is Veg. Why use veg when Canola doesn't impart any different flavor and is *less* bad for you?

I had a favorite choc chip cookie recipe I grew up on but I searched and searched (always still searching to) for a cookie recipe that would compare and didn't call for Crisco. Most only call for butter but since we never once as a kid used butter (I'm sure because it costs double) we used the other recipe with Crisco.

It was easy to make the switch.

So we use real unsalted butter, Canola and Olive Oil and occassionally the generic Pam spray.

Hey what about Lard? i was always told that a way to make a great pastry is to use Lard..never have.
Olive oil and veggie oil.
Crisco or half/Crisco-half butter for the solid stuff.

I used to use Lard, but it goes rancid too quick for me.. I don't bake often enough..

Mostly I am sauteeing with Canola- for the health benefit or Olive oil, also healthy for Italian dishes. Canola and some Olive for vinaigrette dressing. (All Olive may be solid in fridge) Buttter Crisco for biscuits and pie crust. I use cooking spray for cake pans. and use it cautiously on non stick saute because it cooks on at high temps where food is not touching it. Canola in muffins , pancakes, waffles.
Bacon grease good for fried potatos!
Non-virgin olive oil is said to be milder in taste.

Chicken fat? I end up with a lot of that, but don't know how to use it. Any help?

This has all been interesting,and the info was more widely than I had thought it would be.
Now what I'd like to know,what type of pan are you using to cook mostly.
And why Please

Black Iron skillet

Copper bottom skillet

Aluminum Skillet

Stainless steel Skillet

Electric Skillet

Other

I thought Canola was vegetable. What Is it? Meanwhile, we use stainless steel skillet, cast iron and some sort of coated skillet that looks like teflon but may be something else as it is quite new...like 2 years old, new for us. The stainless steel stuff is mine and my D.H. likes and uses all manner of skillets. He's the Big Cook. I just create assemblages. l.o.l.

I too do lot of the cooking,and now the wife has dementia,I'm been doing a lot more of it
lately,thats kind of why all the questions!!!
Never too old to learn!

Aluminum Skillet or stainless steel-don't know for sure. lol. And nonstick pans. Our favorites are the Green Pans you can find on HSN.

Sorry to hear about your wife, Tman.

This message was edited Dec 5, 2008 1:54 PM

Tropicman, next you'll be asking how much we weigh what w/the fat and skillets and all.
I use cast iron - various sizes. I use electric skillets - have 2 and one or the other is constantly in use as I fix pot roasts and large amts. of food in them where I need/want to use just a bit of fat/liquid. Can cook about 20 pcs of fried chicken in those 2 dudes! Have different size other skillets but no copper bottom skillets 'cause I have better things to do than shine my pots and pans. I thought that aluminum skillets had been "outlawed" or at least "ostrasized" because of the amt. of alum. you can get from cooking in aluminum. But you get some iron from cast iron skillets, too, so.....
Tir, I think that the article you read about using coconut oil in popped corn is outdated because if I'm not mistaken there was a big brewhaha that theater pop corn was going to kill everyone so a substitute had to be found. And, roybird, canola is a vegetable. Vegetable oil can be made from so many different kinds of vegetables. I had a friend - a retired school teacher - who lived in Victoria TX and made special trips to Houston to get Soy Spread because it was "heart healthy". I asked her if soy oil had any special taste (I already knew it was dreadfully expensive) and she looked at me and said "You mean they use the OIL from the soy bean to make the spread?"

Ann

Tropicman, I am sorry to hear about your wife. Good that we can get all this information from D.G. Plantladyhou, glad to find canola is vegetable and I LMAO at your soy oil story! We get so many warnings and advice about what is or isn't healthy for us and half of it contradicts the other half!

Olive oil. I mostly use oil in salad dressings. Others are that are interesting in dressings are sesame seed oil and grape seed oil.Thoughts and prayers for you and yours Tropicman.

We use Vegetable, Canola and Olive oils. DH is the cook here..he uses 2 teflon type skillets or an Iron skillet. We also just bought the Emril Smoker which is Cast Iron and weighs a ton, but it is very versatile.

This message was edited Dec 5, 2008 1:39 PM

Thanks everyone,
The reason for all this,if I'm going to be doing the cooking,I need to know what foods burn less in what pans!!!LOL
Can't take care of the house the greenhouses go to work to the cleaning!!
I'm just a man,and you women have been doing this for hundreds of years,and all the best people to ask to get the right answers.
Ann since you brought it up how much weight might I gain from all this cooking,they say your skin absorbs a lot of what your cooking and can add on extra weight!!!????

I do all the cooking on the grill and the outside smoker,and being that I'm diabetic and on insulin I have to watch what I eat,so I'm taking all recipes that will let me cook fast and healthy.
Sad part all this Is I cant seem to get loading the dishwasher down yet!!!LOL
That raises Patti's temper so fast,if I don't put things in the right place!!!!LOL
If I don't fold a piece of clothing just right !!!!
I could go on,put you know what I'm talking about!!!LOL

Stir fries Tropicman are the answer for you IMHO. Quick, easy and very healthy.

Stainless steel skillet or sauté pan with a heavy bottom that's copper clad.

Tropicman, I was so sorry to learn about your wife's condition. No woman has ever done or will ever do EVERYTHING! Not well, anyway. Everyone has to start out small. The folding and DW is primary right now. The cooking will come. Not a one of us started out full steam. Maybe Julia Child did (come to think of it I read she didn't hardly know the way to turn a faucet to get hot and then cold water). You certainly know what's good for you and the things to avoid like lots of fat, sweets, on and on, etc. The best of luck to you and you know that DGers are always here to help out and tell you what to substitute in case you want to cook something that you think would have stuff that dangerous to your health.
Call on us anytime.

Ann

Tropicman, I had posted above before I read what you wrote about your wife. So sorry to hear it.

Since you are diabetic and a gardener, why not grow some yakon tubers? You can use them in many ways and they are good for diabetics. If you are not familiar with them, do a google search.

i use extra virgin, cold-pressed olive oil for almost everything, peanut oil for high heat situations, butter or ghee for flavor enhancing and pure, 100% organic, extra virgin coconut oil for baking. coconut oil has such a bad reputation that i thought this would be a good place to set the record straight. the saturated fat in good coconut oil is actually good for you, has no trans fats and tastes great. it's the heating and processing of oils that turns them into killers.

Best of luck with your situation and learning your new job (chief cook and bottle washer) My stepmom was strguggling a few years ago with my dad not coping with daily things. They advised her to let him do chores that he cold, but it was hard for her to let him take a very long time or not do things just right. or right enough.
I always cook eggs in a non stick type skillet, with butter or oil. The Pam will cook on and turn it black. I use stainless for almost all meal cooking. (A few ceramics for microwave. )A big copperbottom Revere ware skillet is very useful. If you're cooking meat in the stainless skillet and its sticking so you can't turn, lower the heat and wait a minute. Then it should turn.
From Wikipedia- Canola is a type of edible oil derived from plants initially bred in Canada by Keith Downey and Baldur Stefansson in the 1970s. The oil is extracted from a group of cultivars of rapeseed variants from which low erucic acid rapeseed oil and low glucosinolate meal are obtained. The word "canola" was derived from "Canadian oil, low acid" in 1978.[1][2]
I'm having trouble finding out exactly what is vegetable oil--obviously corn peanut canola olive safflower etc are all plants/vegetables.

Thanks for contributing that sallg. I didn't want to say anything before as I'm a Canuck and AB is a big canola producer. I feel that canola oil is healthier than other vegetable oils but that's just MHO. It has a low flash point compared to olive oil so I use it for frying.

Thanks everyone,I'll have to look up those Yakon tubers!!!
SallyG to get a promotion after all these years,and I always wanted top be a chief at something!!!LOL
To be down right honest you all using all those cooking oils I'm more confused now than ever!!!! That means I'd have to think about it before I could figure out which one to use for what!
I guess the right question to ask if you only had to use just one,what would it be?
Then I guess you all would have come back saying you just can't use just one!!!LOL

Wife has so many frying pans,but I have been using the big copper bottom Revere,it's very heavy and works great,but Patti always like to use the Teflon electric skillet,because she said you can adjust the heat faster and better.
Too me there isn't anything that taste as good as saute onions and peppers,with sliced beef,you know you can eat while you cook eat!!!!