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Comment by golem14 | Hacker News Reader

Off-topic, but another area where it seems hard to get good answers is what cooking oil is actually best. E.g., palm oil / coconut oil gets hyped lately, but is it really healthy (in a meaningful way)? Is it gentle on the environment (very likely not).

The industries (merchants of doubt) are so active, it's absolutely nontrivial for a well meaning layman not wanting to invest oddles of time to get to good conclusions.

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Just use olive oil for everything except deep frying. It really is the best, and what is used by high end restaurants almost exclusively.

The smoking point is not a problem, the nasty stuff start appearing as couple dozen degrees _above_ the smoking point, so you can use that as an early warning system.

It also contains antioxidants, which bind some of the nasty stuff for a while, so it really is better for you for regular cooking.

> The smoking point is not a problem

Could not disagree more. Olive oil will be spewing smoke and changing flavour well before you get to a sensible temperature for shallow or stir frying. It is very tasty and apparently quite good for you, so it's a great choice for low-temperature cooking, but anywhere smoking point is important, olive oil is not what you're looking for.

That's a different point though: the fact that it tastes different does not mean it is harmful to consume (which is the point I was trying to make).

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