The problem with olive oil, as vtac says, is that it's not a good choice for higher temps. The best oil for cooking, by far, is virgin coconut oil. It was a favorite of the baking industry until erroneous research in the 50's declared all saturated fat to be bad for heart health. In fact (and studies support it), we need saturated fat in our diet, and coconut oil (non refined or expeller pressed) has been proven to be a heart healthy oil, even more so than olive oil. Unfortunately, since the seed oil companies jumped on the crappy saturated fat research in order to fatten their pockets, the production of virgin coconut oil turned into a cottage industry, and it's only produced by a handful of companies. It is available online from quite a few sources now, as the true info has been spreading in recent years.
"When researchers looked at the fatty acid composition of the phospholipids in the T-cells (white blood cells), from both young and old donors, they found that a loss of saturated fatty acids in the lymphocytes was responsible for age-related declines in white blood cell function. They found that they could correct cellular deficiencies in palmitic acid and myristic acid by adding these saturated fatty acids.
Most Westerners consume very little myristic acid because it is provided by coconut oil and dairy fats, both of which we are told to avoid. But myristic acid is a very important fatty acid, which the body uses to stabilize many different proteins, including proteins used in the immune system and to fight tumors. This function is called myristoylation; it occurs when myristic acid is attached to the protein in a specific position where it functions usefully. For example, the body has the ability to suppress production of tumors from lung cancer cells if a certain genetically determined suppressor gene is available. This gene is called fus1 and is a protein that has been modified with covalent addition of the saturated fatty acid myristic acid. Thus, the loss of myristic acid from the diet can have unfortunate consequences, including cancer and immune system dysfunction.
How much total saturated do we need? During the 1970s, researchers from Canada found that animals fed rapeseed oil and canola oil developed heart lesions. This problem was corrected when they added saturated fat to the animals diets. On the basis of this and other research, they ultimately determined that the diet should contain at least 25 percent of fat as saturated fat. Among the food fats that they tested, the one found to have the best proportion of saturated fat was lard, the very fat we are told to avoid under all circumstances!
These are some of the complex but vital reasons we need to include palm oil, coconut oil, butter and lard in our diets."
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/import_sat_fat.html
This is as much a truth as what we know about cannabis. That it's not the harmful drug that the establishment, both medical and legal, would have us believe. My health sermon for the day.
