Oils

[KrissStress]

So I'm trying to figure out just how much of this I can get away with each day. I cook only with Extra Virgin Olive or basic veggie and use them mainly to sautee things like mushrooms or onions or tofu and in some cases to make stirfrys.

I'm a bit paranoid to use any at all and I've heard that fat free salad dressings can typically do the trick when sauteeing things.

I've never really given any thought to this before, but a book I've been reading recently on vegan health has somewhat alerted me to it.

thoughts?

[xrodolfox]

Why are you paranoid? I don't understand from your posts.

I use A LOT of oils in all my cooking, and have experienced nothing but good health since I started. Yummy deep fried tofu. And no one is harmed, and I stay healthy.

What exactly are you worried about?

[Tigerlily]

Weight gain, xrodolfox, weight gain. :p

[KrissStress]

Precisely. I've been reading Vegan - The New Ethics of Eating, and in one particular chapter it lists some vegan things that if eaten in high quantity (nuts, avocados, oils) can cause weight gain and be just as damaging as mass amounts of dairy. I mean, think about it - I like deep fried tofu, but tons and tons of deep fried anything probably isn't a good idea on a consistent basis. :)

so the question still stands on just how much is safe a day. A cup perhaps? Maybe half?

[Roxy]

They say as far as your fat consumption goes, no more than 30% of your daily calories should come from fat. Preferably good fats - such as avocados, nuts, olive oil etc rather than from transfats.

[KrissStress]

that tells me that a cup a day of oils for cooking would be very acceptable...

thanks Roxy :)

[Roxy]

You're welcome - though a cup of oils a days seems like an awful lot. In one cup of olive oil there is over 1900 calories. That's more than some people's total daily allowance of total calories.

[Sandy777]

So I'm trying to figure out just how much of this I can get away with each day. I cook only with Extra Virgin Olive or basic veggie and use them mainly to sautee things like mushrooms or onions or tofu and in some cases to make stirfrys.

I'm a bit paranoid to use any at all and I've heard that fat free salad dressings can typically do the trick when sauteeing things.

I've never really given any thought to this before, but a book I've been reading recently on vegan health has somewhat alerted me to it.

thoughts?

Kriss, I really wouldn't worry if I were you, you're not having calories from meat, milk, eggs, and processed crap etc. so you have a few extra calories to play with - also I don't think we vegans eat much processed and refined food - I find that puts the weight on me! I fry in olive or peanut oil all the time, and I don't worry. Just buy decent quality oil and use as much as you're comfy with, and you could always get one of those spray guns to use less if you're worried!:)

[harpy]

ETA, sorry - missed Roxy's post first time around.

A cup of olive oil has 1909 calories according to this - can it be right? http://www.calorie-count.com/calories/item/4053.html I don't calorie-count and don't tend to measure things in cups so I don't know how realistic this is.

I try not to go mad with oil, and don't deep-fry anything (I'm useless at it!), but a tbsp or so in cooking, salads etc doesn't hurt (famous last words).

[cherrywisp]

A cup is a lot of calories. One tablespoon has like 120-150 calories if I remember correctly, and it's really fatty?
I think one tablespoon of olive oil has 100% of the fat calories you should be taking in in one day. I'm not sure though.

I don't use oil every day and when I do use it, I try to use as little as possible.

I stirfry my vegetables in water, I guess that's not really stirfry, but then I add soy sauce, it tastes just as good to me.

The only time I use oil is when I'm cooking home fries, and I use way too much. But I don't eat those every day.

[horselesspaul]

Eat the good things (many of which you really need to be a naturally healthy vegan), like olive oil and nuts and avocados, and exercise.
I am overweight but that's partly my body type and partly middle age creep combined with sedentary studio work. I do play 4 hours of football each week to attempt to compensate. It's going well.
Your mileage may vary as usual.

[pavotrouge]

A cup seems a lot to me, too, although use a lot of olive oil for Mediterranean food and not little vegetable gee for Indian cooking.

Anyway, cooking totally oil-free isn't a solution either, because the body needs fat to be able to digest/get the vitamins out of certain foods, eg carrots.

[Marrers]

My friend went to a talk where they said rapeseed oil is better for you than olive oil, especially if heating it. I try to use those expensive 'good' oils like Udo's or similar in salads and cook with olive oil or rapeseed oil depending on flavour requirements.

[pavotrouge]

is "rapeseed" still a political correct term?

[Marrers]

:confused:

[pavotrouge]

it's the same as Canola oil, that's what I meant to say. The word "rapeseed" makes me shudder.

[Marrers]

We call it rapeseed oil here. I just looked it up on Wikipedia.


The word "canola" was derived from "Canadian oil, low acid" in 1978.

Canola was developed through conventional plant breeding from rapeseed, an oilseed plant with roots in ancient civilization. The word "rape" in rapeseed comes from the Latin word "rapum," meaning turnip.

The negative associations with the word "rape" in North America resulted in the more marketing-friendly name "Canola". The change in name also serves to distinguish it from regular rapeseed oil, which has much higher erucic acid content.

ETA Maybe we have the 'regular' rapeseed oil here.

[cherrywisp]

I didn't know canola oil had anything to do with rapeseed, but on wikipedia it says canola is only one particular variety of it.

And rapeseed has nothing to do with rape.

"The name is derived from the Latin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin) for turnip (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnip), rāpum or rāpa, and is first recorded in English at the end of the 14th century."

[KrissStress]

I've never been good at counting exact calories either, so a cup seemed sensible at the time. This would mean that I could probably get away with a quarter cup a day most likely when cooking.

Alot of times when making stirfrys or sauteeing things, I use a good bit more then a quarter cup, but it occurs to me at the moment that whatever I'm making I usually make enough of to feed others as well as to make a couple of extra meals for myself for the following days. So I suppose it all evens out.

thank you everyone for yr input - I've got alot more info to draw on now with this whole oil thing :)

[Tigerlily]

When I was Weight Watchers, the daily serving of healthy oils was 2 teaspoons. But if you're not trying to lose weight, you can maybe have a couple of more.