I graduated with a B.S. in Nutrition (with an emphasis on Culinary Arts) in 2013. In our Whole Foods Nutrition courses we were taught about cooking oils and what ones to use when. We were told that you should not cook with olive oil because it has a low smoke point and denatures quickly when heated, turning it into a trans fat. My understanding is that olive oil is an incredibly healthy oil, but should be used raw for dressings and drizzling, or cooked on very low heat. This does not seem to be common knowledge 7 years later and I am wondering if anyone here can confirm for me that this is true. Researching on the internet I have found conflicting information and most articles say that olive oil is stable at high heat with a smoke point of 374-405 degrees F (190-207 C). Any thoughts, comments or links to peer reviewed research would be much appreciated!
Recent research has suggested that olive oil’s smoke point is not totally indicative of it’s degradation. It’s been shown to be quite stable even when used with high heat. Here is the paper that generally gets referenced.
I don’t cook on high heat with olive oil so this is only my opinion but I do sear a LOT of meats in a cast iron pan with high heat oils. Lately I’ve been using expeller pressed safflower oil and used grape seed oil before that. I’ve seen articles that say that olive oil won’t get rancid at high heat (smoke point), but with the lower smoke point I think you’d be more likely to set off your smoke alarms and fill your kitchen with lots of acrid smoke.
here’s Adam Ragusea’s take on it.
People in Greece and Italy etc. cook with olive oil and don’t seem to suffer any ill effects. I cook with it when the flavors compliment my dishes. My go to fats are: olive, canola, coconut, sesame, butter and lard, so everything has a distinct flavor except the canola which I just use when I want no added flavor.
I’m not an expert in cooking or nutrition but I almost exclusively cook with olive oil and I go to high heat sometimes. Never had any issue with the oil smoking. I certainly hope it doesn’t break down to a “worse” fat though, I’d love to see the answer to your post
Edit: On high In oven it does smoke
From a health perspective:
VOO=virgin olive oil “In general, flavone content showed a decrease during heating, being higher for Arbequina oil. On the other hand, oleic acid, sterols, squalene, and triterpenic alcohols (erythrodiol and uvaol) and acids (oleanolic and maslinic) were quite constant, exhibiting a high stability against oxidation. From these results, we can conclude that despite the heating conditions, VOO maintained most of its minor compounds and, therefore, most of its nutritional properties.”
Allouche, Y.; Jiménez, A.; Gaforio, J.J.; Uceda, M.; Beltrán, G. How heating affects extra virgin olive oilquality indexes and chemical composition. J. Agric. Food Chem. 2007, 55, 9646–9654.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jf070628u
“Consumption of repeatedly heated cooking oil (RHCO) has been a regular practice without knowing the harmful effects of use. The present study is based on the hypothesis that, heating of edible oils to their boiling points results in the formation of free radicals that cause oxidative stress and induce damage at the cellular and molecular levels… Results of the present study confirm that the thermal oxidation of cooking oil generates free radicals and dietary consumption of such oil results in detrimental health effects.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214750016300592Perumalla
Venkata, R.; Subramanyam, R. Evaluation of the deleterious health effects of consumption of repeatedly heated vegetable oil. Toxicol. Rep. 2016, 3, 636–643
Review on colorectal cancer:
“OO shows less chemico-physical modifications with heating as compared to other vegetable oils. A study showed that OO, subjected to heating at 180 ◦C for 36 h, preserved most of its substances and nutritional characteristics [20]. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heterocyclic amines (HCAs) are potentially mutagenic substances produced in cooking oils when repeatedly heated, at high temperatures [21–23]. PAHs and HCAs could be involved in CRC carcinogenesis [24,25]. However, the incidence of CRC did not seem to increase in consumers of food fried in OO [23]. OO is preferable for its properties and substances to other vegetable oils for cooking, if used once and heated under180 ◦C [26].”
Borzì, A. M., Biondi, A., Basile, F., Luca, S., Vicari, E. S. D., & Vacante, M. (2019). Olive oil effects on colorectal cancer. Nutrients, 11(1), 32.
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/11/1/32 (Nutrients journal impact factor 5.71)
I’ve been using avocado oil for high heat and olive for low and no heat. They have nearly identical nutritional profiles with avocado being able to take high heat at 450-500 degrees with the added benefit of a neutral taste. Since they are so similar nutritionally, there is no need to cook with olive oil. Save it for salads and cold food because it does have great flavor.
Olive oil has one of the lowest smoke points of commonly available oils. When I reverse sear steaks, I typically use a little sunflower or canola oil and wait till it starts smoking, then drop some clarified butter in right before putting the meat in.
I don’t think you need to be super worried about using olive oil in cooking unless you’re literally trying to do the above (or something else requiring 400-450+ F temps)
I thought the same but it turns out that extra-virgin olive oil is one of the best oils for cooking at high heat.
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>Results showed that extra-virgin olive oil was the safest and most stable when heated to temperatures even higher than those commonly used for sautéing, deep-frying and baking. It produced the lowest quantity of polar compounds compared to the other oils tested. The runner up was coconut oil.
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>The study also disproved the commonly held view that oil with a high smoke point is best suited for high-temperature cooking. In fact, an oil’s smoke point doesn’t indicate how it will perform when heated.
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>From https://www.drweil.com/diet-nutrition/cooking-cookware/does-high-heat-hurt-olive-oil/
Extracting the oil from the olive (or any other plant) leaves you with one specific component of a whole food. Throwing away the fibre, enzymes, and most of the nutrients.
Not much different than extracting white flour from whole wheat.
It doesn’t seem right to me that something isolated and extracted in such a fashion could be considered to have nutrients that wouldn’t be better utilized if found in an actual whole food.
So, for me, I don’t really see why any type of oil could be considered optimal in any way.
Best of all, once you learn to omit all oils from your cooking repertoire, food tastes so much better.
Just my personal experience.
Olive Oil is Good
Olive oil is very stable overall,
even under extreme conditions like deep frying. Many studies have
exposed olive oil to high heat for long periods of time. Even under such
extreme conditions, the olive oil does not form significant amounts of
harmful compounds