OLIVE OIL MORE STABLE AND HEALTHFUL THAN SEED OILS FOR FRYING FOODS
Frying is one of the
world's most popular ways to prepare food -- think fried chicken and french
fries. Even candy bars and whole turkeys have joined the list. But before
dunking your favorite food in a vat of just any old oil, consider using olive.
Scientists report in ACS' Journal of Agricultural
and Food Chemistry that olive oil withstands the heat of the fryer
or pan better than several seed oils to yield more healthful food.
Mohamed
Bouaziz and colleagues note that different oils have a range of physical,
chemical and nutritional properties that can degrade oil quality when heated.
Some of these changes can lead to the formation of new compounds that are
potentially toxic. By-products of heating oil can also lower the nutritional
value of the food being fried. Bouaziz's team wanted to find out which cooking
oil can maintain its quality under high heat and repeated use.
The
researchers deep- and pan-fried raw potato pieces in four different refined
oils -- olive, corn, soybean and sunflower -- and reused the oil 10 times. They
found that olive oil was the most stable oil for deep-frying at 320 and 374
degrees Fahrenheit, while sunflower oil degraded the fastest when pan-fried at
356 degrees. They conclude that for frying foods, olive oil maintains quality and
nutrition better than seed oils.
The
authors acknowledge funding from the Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et
de la Recherche Scientifique and the Ministère de l'Agriculture, Tunisia.
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