Olive oil more stable and healthful than seed oils for frying food

The words “healthy” and “fried” don’t often appear in the same sentence. But if you are looking for the healthiest way to fry your food, olive oil may be the way to go.

Scientists have reported in the 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.

They 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.

The team wanted to find out which cooking oil can maintain its quality under high heat and repeated use. They deep- and pan-fried raw potato pieces in four different refined oils - olive, corn, soybean and sunflower - and re-used the oil 10 times.

They found that olive oil was the most stable oil for deep-frying at 160 and 190°C, while sunflower oil degraded the fastest when pan-fried at 180°C. They conclude that for frying foods, olive oil maintains quality and nutrition better than seed oils.