Kill, f*ck, marry. You likely played it at summer camp or at parties before beer pong took center stage. While your chosen subjects might have been Spice Girls or Dawson’s Creek characters, our mud team played a round with cooking oils. Weird? Maybe, but we found it stoked a lively conversation about caring as much about what we put into our skillets as we do our mugs.
While we’re also fans of cooking with animal fats like ghee, if you want to cook with a plant-based oil, these are our picks.
KILL: CANOLA OIL
Canola oil would text “u up?”. If you have nothing else in the pantry with which to cook, it’s better than nothing… but it’s pretty toxic. Canola oil is extracted from rapeseed plants that have been bred to have lower levels of toxic erucic acid. Know what rapeseed looks like? Us either, so we aren’t trying to chow down on it. If we know what’s in our morning ritual, we wanna know what’s on our dinner plate.
In the late 90s, they also began genetically engineering rapeseed to be resistant to herbicides; today, almost all canola crops in North America are GMO. Genetically-modified crops are not only detrimental to your body but also the planet: scientists found that once genetically-modified canola crops are grown in a field, it takes 16 years before a conventional crop can be grown in the same field without fear of contamination of more than 0.9%, the threshold for claiming that the crop was GMO-free. Furthermore, canola oil is a real heartbreaker: research has found some trans fats in canola oil, which are not labeled, and are the opposite of healthy for your heart.
We know, we know… you and canola oil go way back. But… “Are you sure you want to unfollow CANOLA OIL?” Click. Dead to me.
F*CK: OLIVE OIL
Olive oil is meant to be enjoyed. It was voted Life of the Party and claims it’s love language is “physical touch”. We recommend keeping a bottle of extra virgin, cold-pressed olive oil on hand for salad dressings. Drizzle that baby onnn. It works okay for sautees, too.
But when olive oil is heated too high, it will lose it’s delicate flavor. A different oil should be used when cooking at high temperatures. Is it getting hot in here? Take off all your clothes, then move to the next.
MARRY: AVOCADO OIL
In the 80s, no one was telling you guac was extra, ‘cause no one was ordering it. Low fat diets were all the rage here in the US as people believed eating a diet high in fat was a sureshot way to gain weight, so Americans cold-shouldered avocados due to their fat content.
About a decade and a half later, word got out that different fats do different things in the body. Today, avocados are prized because of their monounsaturated (healthy) fat content. Thanks to the rise of the paleo and keto movements, people now embrace healthy fats, and avocados are now regarded as a superfood. Think of avocado oil as the outcast who blossomed into a smoke show.
Avocado oil’s fatty acid profile is similar to that of olive oil, but it has an even higher smoke point, making it an ideal choice for cooking. Avocado oil we can really see ourselves growing old with: one study showed that rats who were fed avocado oil over an extended period of time increased collagen in their skin. (Collagen production declines as we age). Plus, just like MUD\WTR, avocado oil like that from Primal Kitchen is whole 30 approved. To put it simply, avocado oil is our dinner-and-a-documentary date forever and a day.
Whatever you choose, always strive to use organic, unrefined, cold-pressed or expeller pressed oils.
What should we cover in our next round of Kill, F*ck, Marry?
See our Kill, F*ck, Marry for Almond Milk here.
SOURCES:
Food Babe
Dr. Hyman
Mark’s Daily Apple
