Frying Food

FRYING FOODS 

Fried foods can harm your health especially if consumed often.
This is because both the oils and food are damaged by high temperatures.

Oils for frying (in preference order)

·         Butter

·         Coconut

·          Palm oil (consider environmental destruction)

·         High oleic sunflower (not regular sunflower) often expensive and hard to find

·         High oleic safflower (not regular safflower)    often expensive and hard to find

·         Peanut oil (consider GM)

·         Sesame oil (expensive)

·         Canola (consider GM)

·         Olive oil (best for low temperature frying,  a healthy oil when unheated)

“Frying with oils once will not kill us, and so seems harmless. Our body copes with toxic substances. But over 10, 20 or 30 years our cells accumulate altered and toxic products for which we have not evolved efficient detoxifying mechanisms. The altered and toxic substances interfere with our body’s life chemistry, our ‘bio-chemistry’. Cells then degenerate, and these degeneration processes manifest as degenerative diseases.”  (Erasmus)

“Used in moderation, butter and tropical fats create fewer health problems than other oils but since they fail to supply EFAs (essential fatty acids), they are nutritionally deficient. They provide only fat calories our body must burn for energy or store as fat.” (Erasmus)

The claim that butter has no nutritional value is refuted by Sally Fallon. The best butter sourced from organic milk will have vitamins A, D and E, whilst organic coconut oil contains lauric acid which “has strong anti fungal and anti-microbial properties”(Fallon).

Cooking with oil requires care and attention. We cannot be away doing something else at the same time. The Chinese, who invented stir fry, put water in first and then oil, whilst European gourmet cooks place vegetables in the frying pan before oil is added to protect oil from overheating and oxidation. The food retains more of its flavour and nutrients and most important, supports health better.

All oils but especially polyunsaturated need to be stored away from light, air and extreme heat. Thus most supermarket oils are unfit for consumption (rancid).

References

Udo Erasmus “Fats that heal, Fats that Kill” and Sally Fallon “Nourishing Traditions”