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Healthy Home Economist / Archives / Healthy Fats / How to Choose and Reuse Cooking Oil Safely

How to Choose and Reuse Cooking Oil Safely

by Sarah Pope / Affiliate Links ✔

Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
  • Commercial Cooking Oil Truth Bomb
  • But Wait!  Isn't Canola Monounsaturated Like Olive Oil?
  • Selecting a Healthy Cooking Oil
  • Guidelines for Safely Reusing Cooking Oil+−
    • More Information on Healthy Fats

How to choose and reuse cooking oil by following these important safety guidelines to avoid the creation of free radicals and carcinogens in the oil and your food.reusing cooking oil

If you talk with anyone who has ever worked at a fast-food joint, chances are that one of the things they will tell you is how gross the commercial vegetable oil used for frying gets as it is repeatedly reused.

Even if procedures are supposedly in place to prevent the continual reuse of disgustingly rancid cooking oil, restaurant managers frequently ignore them and push the envelope as much as possible to keep cooking oil costs down.

While this vegetable oil is great for fueling some types of automobiles, it’s not at all good for your health, certainly not as a healthy cooking oil!

Commercial Cooking Oil Truth Bomb

The scary truth is that restaurant cooking oil is rancid before it is used even one time.

This is because the oils of choice in the restaurant industry are highly refined at extreme temperatures. What’s more, the polyunsaturate-heavy fatty acid profile of commercial vegetable oil makes it prone to rancidity from the factory processing, so much so, that edible oil companies have to deodorize them afterward (sometimes multiple times) because they smell so bad!

These types of oils that were never designed to be heated at all much less fried in.

The cheap oils restaurants use for frying, primarily canola or soybean oil, also contain trans fat even if marketed as “trans fat free“.

Adding insult to injury, both soy and canola oil are most likely genetically modified unless organic. What restaurant uses organic cooking oil? Not even Chick-fil-A or Chipotle last time I checked, although, to their credit, these restaurant chains respectively use refined peanut oil and rice bran oil for cooking, neither of which are GMO.

You see, it doesn’t really matter if a restaurant serves a meal of sustainable organic fare sourced locally.

If the food is cooked in commercial cooking oil (sometimes falsely called an “olive oil blend” which is mostly canola), the meal is probably still going to make you feel terrible later anyway.

But Wait!  Isn’t Canola Monounsaturated Like Olive Oil?

Some might argue that canola and peanut oil have a high amount of monounsaturated fats which are more stable for frying than a predominantly polyunsaturated oil like soy.

However, canola also has a large percentage of delicate omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fats. And, peanut oil is nearly one-third omega-6 polyunsaturated. These heat-sensitive fatty acids are almost certainly rancid upon leaving the factory. Then, they are denatured further when used for frying and potentially reused.

As mentioned earlier, if a restaurant claims to be using olive oil (which is low in polyunsaturates) for cooking, you should still be on the alert. It is most likely not 100% olive oil. Restaurant grade olive oil is cut with GM canola oil or another cheap polyunsaturated oil.

Selecting a Healthy Cooking Oil

Even though fried foods at restaurants have a bad rap and for very good reason, do not despair. Frying at home can be a much healthier experience!

All that is required to safely cook and fry in oils at home is selecting the correct type of fat and keeping the heat below the smokepoint.

Traditional cultures seemed to know instinctively which fats were best for cooking. These revered fats are almost without exception of animal origin.

If you are uncertain about whether a fat is safe to cook in or not, just note the percentages of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats it contains. All fats and oils contain varying ratios of the three.

If the percentage of polyunsaturates is very low (10% or less) as is the case with animal fats, then it is a good bet that the oil is fine to cook or even fry in.

For example, I am asked frequently about grapeseed oil for cooking. It’s even considered a traditional fat. It is certainly marketed as heart-healthy. But, is it good for frying?

The answer is that grapeseed oil is not a good oil to cook in and certainly not to fry in. It is very high in polyunsaturates (nearly 75%) which most Americans are already overdoing with their predilection for processed foods.

A better choice would be a traditional fat like pastured lard or tallow which is the usual fat I use for making French fries.

Tallow is less than 5% polyunsaturated.

In a nutshell, as a general rule of thumb, if you are not sure about a particular cooking oil, make sure it is very low in polyunsaturates before you select it for cooking or frying.

Guidelines for Safely Reusing Cooking Oil

You may remember Grandma reusing bacon grease or leaving a dish of used cooking oil by the side of the stove for later use. However, be aware that even healthy oils can have plenty of free radicals after cooking that can harm your health.

Here are the two things to keep in mind before reusing any cooking fat – even if traditional:

  1. Stay Below Smokepoint. Be sure to know what the smokepoint of your cooking oil is and even test it with a digital food thermometer before starting to cook the food with it. Exceeding the smokepoint ensures that free radicals will be in your food even if you cooked with a very healthy, traditional fat. If you did exceed the smokepoint, it’s definitely best to not reuse the oil! Even high smokepoint oils like avocado oil and clarified butter (ghee) can be damaged when the heat gets too high.
  2. Remove Bits of Cooked Food. Are there bits of food in the oil after you finished cooking? Even if you were careful to stay below the smokepoint for the particular oil you used, having food particles left in the oil will reduce the smokepoint of the oil if it is used again. If you want to be super safe, it is best to not reuse the oil at that point. If budget reasons require the use of the oil again, be sure to filter out the food particles as best you can. Besides negatively affecting the smokepoint, they contain carcinogenic acrylamides. By ensuring that the reused cooking oil does not contain food residue, you will avoid a significant drop in the smokepoint of the reused cooking oil and also decrease the chance of excessive free radical production.

More Information on Healthy Fats

Cooking with Olive Oil: Yay or Nay?
Why Pumpkin Seed Oil is Not Good for Cooking
Chicken Fat for Cooking
How Argan Oil Benefits Health
Red Palm Oil Benefits Rival Coconut Oil
Walnut Oil: Healthy Sub for Flax Oil
The Many Shades of Palm Oil

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Category: Healthy Fats
Sarah Pope

Sarah Pope MGA has been a Health and Nutrition Educator since 2002. She is a summa cum laude graduate in Economics from Furman University and holds a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of three books: the bestseller Get Your Fats Straight, Traditional Remedies for Modern Families, and Living Green in an Artificial World.

Her four eBooks Good Diet…Bad Diet, Real Food Fermentation, Ketonomics, and Ancestrally Inspired Dairy-Free Recipes are available for complimentary download via Healthy Home Plus.

Her mission is dedicated to helping families effectively incorporate the principles of ancestral diets within the modern household. She is a sought after lecturer around the world for conferences, summits, and podcasts.

Sarah was awarded Activist of the Year in 2010 at the International Wise Traditions Conference, subsequently serving on the Board of Directors of the nutrition nonprofit the Weston A. Price Foundation for seven years.

Her work has been covered by numerous independent and major media including USA Today, ABC, and NBC among many others.

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Reader Interactions

Comments (75)

  1. Richard

    May 11, 2020 at 6:23 pm

    After making bone broth and removing the solids I chill and remove the beef/chicken fat that rises to the top…Then warm the fat to liquid again and pour into pint jars and freeze/refrigerate…Great for frying just about anything…

    Reply
  2. Kimberly

    May 6, 2020 at 9:56 am

    I would love it if you would add to the article how to strain the oil for reuse. I am guessing by filtering it through a non-bleached coffee filter?

    Reply
    • Sarah Pope MGA

      May 6, 2020 at 10:22 am

      Yes, that would work well. I use a cotton cloth or a tight weave cheesecloth. Anything that would trap even very fine food particles.

  3. Amit Aggarwal

    Jul 26, 2018 at 3:17 am

    Thanks for the knowledge!

    Reply
  4. Daniel O. Beltran

    Jul 15, 2018 at 7:24 pm

    What about Flaxseed Oil and mix one part with 3 parts of rice oil to cook with? I’ve been told that it is a very good for lowering ones cholesterol after 60 days.

    Reply
    • Sarah

      Jul 15, 2018 at 8:59 pm

      You can absolutely never cook with flaxseed oil! It is high in omega-3 fats and is made rancid when you heat it! Flaxseed oil is only appropriate blended with a salad dressing or some other nonheated usage.

  5. Nataly

    Oct 30, 2017 at 7:02 pm

    What type of oil or substitute for oil would u say is the healthiest to use for baking?

    Reply
  6. Stacy

    Mar 31, 2016 at 2:02 pm

    What does, “sunflower oil which a no-no polyunsaturated” mean? Am I just reading that sixth paragraph wrong?

    Reply
    • Sarah

      Mar 31, 2016 at 5:28 pm

      A no-no polyunsaturated fat is a fat that is high in omega-6 fats which most Westerners get far too many of in the diet and which contributes to inflammatory problems when too much is consumed (small amounts are fine … a 1:1 ratio with omega 3 fats is ideal).

    • Stacy

      Apr 5, 2016 at 9:41 am

      Thank you for replying, Sarah! I know you’re a busy lady. The sunflower oil I use is roughly:
      Monounsaturated fats 87.0%
      Polyunsaturated fats 5.5%
      Saturated fats 7.5%

      It’s a high oleic acid sunflower oil. Since the amount of polyunsaturated fats is “low” is it safer to use for frying than the evil canola oil? I hope the wool hasn’t been pulled over my eyes. Shame on me if it has! I appreciate the time you put into this blog and your guidance through these comments!

    • Sarah

      Apr 5, 2016 at 11:51 am

      Sounds like it should be ok!

  7. Ari

    Apr 18, 2013 at 8:33 am

    This is all very interesting, fascinating and, a little scary. It makes sense though. I was always told that safflower oil, canola oil, and olive oil were good for you. The this whole frying thing?I’m going to have to reconsider my eating habits. Thanks for the informative post.

    Reply
    • Pam

      Apr 20, 2013 at 2:02 am

      It’s all so confusing. Another alternative health site says olive oil and safflower oil are fine, and a friend of mine who is a whole foods guru uses olive oil. I have heard canola is not ideal across the board. I use olive oil for cooking, but still use canola for baking recipes. It tastes funny when I use olive oil for baking. I have had difficulty finding a lot of these other oils at stores and have found them online only. Then they priced themselves right on out of my budget 🙁

  8. George

    Apr 12, 2013 at 9:59 am

    Good to know all that stuff thanks for the information!

    Reply
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