Cooking With Fats...

Mrs_Duh

I am on day three of my Primal/Paleo journey, and so far it hasn't been too bad! I've been a little over my normal 1500 calorie count per day, but I read that Paleo isn't as concerned with counting calories as it is with cutting the grains and processed foods. Ive been under 50g carbs per day. Hopefully, I'm doing it right!

For a person who has been eating low-cal and low-fat for years, cooking with all of the fats and oils is kind of new territory for me. I bought some coconut oil and grass fed butter for cooking. What is your preferred fat to cook with? Is one "better"/healthier/tastier than the other?

MikeFlyMike

Depends on what I'm cooking. Love me some grass fed butter.. Olive oils also excellent and you should try to get some coconut oil often.. So there, you are on a roll...

TheYoungRetiree

Good one! I as you know, just started my journey and new way of life too. I've used the coconut oil for baking and love it. I use a good olive oil as a safe cooking oil for my meets. A dash of salt, a dash of pepper- done.

I'll be checking this one later to see some helpful tips! I was wondering about what to put on steamed veggies- I guess grassfed butter is on the grocery list!

skwidlund

This is a great resourece for fats and oils - I think it lived on my fridge for the first six months after I started eating paleo/primal: http://www.balancedbites.com/PDFs/BalancedBites_FatsAndOils.pdf

I prefer coconut oil or clarified butter for cooking or baking, and if I want the olive oil flavor I just add a drizzle at the end. This blog post (also from Balanced Bites - love her clarity!) has more info on which ones are safest to cook with: http://balancedbites.com/2011/09/faqs-what-are-safe-cooking-fats-oils.html

monkeydharma

Oils (good, natural oils - not the crap oils) have fragrent flavors. It's pretty obvious with oils like sesame or peanut; not so much with others - but they all do. Once you've determined which oils are a part of your cooking arsenal, just consider them as you would another ingredient - pick the oil that works best with the recipe. For me, eggs just have to be cooked in butter; I will use either butter or coconut oil with shrimp (chipotle butter in the first case; tarragon and lavender in the second); usually olive oil with veg, although I prefer butter with mushrooms .

Jindra12

I use bacon grease for most of the time. Many pigs out there are afraid of me. I cannot resist the bacons. I once cooked bacons and then cover it with dark chocolates. It was totally unbelievable!

Coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, and MCT oil is awesome for me.

kjm3579

I prefer to use Coconut oil but will use Olive oil in place of it -- just was making a list today to get both of these on my next food run. The Coconut oil seems to be better at higher temperatures than Olive oil is.