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Comment by eitally | Hacker News Reader

This article is very hard to draw conclusions from. For one, when they talk about frying, are they literally meaning deep frying / pan frying, or also including sauteeing and similar? Secondly, for Americans at least, they don't mention canola/rapeseed oil at all, and that's by far the most commonly used here. Thirdly, most people have absolutely no clue how hot their pans get when they cook, but I suspect the majority have burned butter or smoked their olive oil. Fourth, I know peanut oil is very common in Chinese/Asian cooking. I wonder how it fares.

We use coconut oil for a lot of stuff (high heat in pans, but also for baking & grilling), and olive oil for the rest.

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They do mention rapeseed oil, and it's one of the best along with olive oil. And it has higher smoke point, so I suspected it's the best oil for frying for quite a while. Unfortunately it's very rarely sold in my country.

And for anyone who's not familiar, rapeseed oil is sold as canola oil in the US and Canada.

Refined and extra-light grades of olive oil have a higher smoke point than canola (rapeseed) oil, actually. I had been using corn oil for its higher smoke point, in comparison to canola, but have now switched to refined and extra-light olive. Works better for me than canola, as I sometimes fry at above 400F (canola's smoke point).

They do mention rapeseed oil, which has become quite popular in the UK over the past 5 years or so:

> The olive oil and cold-pressed rapeseed oil produced far less aldehydes

>For one, when they talk about frying, are they literally meaning deep frying / pan frying, or also including sauteeing and similar?

They're talking about any method in which the cooking oil is heated to temperatures where it can "burn". Sauteing would fall under this category, though generally you're using a lower cooking temperature.

They do mention canola (rapeseed) oil, and they also mention the temperature they are looking at (365F), so it can apply to whatever cooking methods heat oil to this temperature (frying, searing, etc). Use an infrared thermometer on your pans when heating oil, and you'll soon get a feel for what temperatures are produced by your usual methods.

fun fact about rapeseed oil, the process of refining it actually turns it rancid so it must be deodorized and bleached before sale.

That sounds terrifying except that I use it every day and it certainly doesn't taste rancid, so they must be doing something right.

I'm pretty sure canola is not the most common used in America, soy (sold as "vegetable oil") is; and, as others have noted, they do address canola by its other name, rapeseed.

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