Further PUFA advice please

[rachelleigh]

Thanks for the replies on my original PUFA thread. My take from those replies is that animal derived fats, olive oil, coconut oil are ok. Everything else is out. Am I right in thinking that nut oils are no better than grain-based oils (not that I've ever used these)? Ditto avocado oil and palm oil? Is there anything else I haven't thought of?

Thanks again!

[TheAwfulToad Ambassador]

Personally I try to avoid dividing the world into "good" and "bad" stuff - things are rarely so cut-and-dried. I'd look at it more in terms of making better choices rather than good/bad choices.

The issue with polyunsaturated oils is twofold:

a) Many of them contain very large amounts of omega-6 Essential Fatty Acids, which you'd think would be a good thing, but your dietary omega-3:omega-6 ratio seems to be important. More is not always better. They're still figuring out the details, so I won't say this is bad as such; it just suggests the commonsense approach of avoiding highly-processed foods (especially sunflower oil, corn oil, and soybean oil).

The term 'omega-n' indicates the position of an unsaturated bond (counting from the methyl end), if you're wondering.

b) Commonly-used cooking oils will oxidize and polymerize into harmful chemicals (including known carcinogens). They possibly do similar things inside your body, but again, the jury is still out on that one. Anyway, if you're cooking - especially deep-frying at high temperatures - I'd go with lard, beef dripping, or duck/goose fat if it's available to you. The texture and flavour of food fried in those things is so much better, and they don't create that weird filmy gunk on your chip pan.

There's a chart in the middle of the page indicating omega-6 content of various oils:

healthline.com/nutrition/op...

Palm oil is nutritionally fine, although you're unlikely to see real, virgin palm oil in British supermarkets. People have been eating it for millennia, just like lard and coconut oil. The environmental aspect is ... complicated. Maybe I'll write a new post about that.

[rachelleigh in reply to TheAwfulToad]

Thank you for the detailed reply and the link. I always appreciate your input in the HU forums - it's usually pretty thought-provoking.