For quite some time now, I’ve been buying and using canola oil for coating skillets and for recipes that call for oil. While extra virgin olive oil, and in some cases coconut oil, are seen as healthier choices, I’ve just found that I like using canola oil better. It’s also cheaper just to buy one type of oil to use for recipes and for skillet-cooking.
When I bought and used extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil, I would use the olive oil for recipes calling for some type of oil. I also used it along with a seasoning mix at times to dress salads. I primarily used coconut oil for coating skillets to cook stir-fry vegetables or fish, among other things. It actually worked really well for skillet-cooking frozen waffles. Over time, though, I wondered if it might be simpler just to use one oil for all these things. I didn’t really like how olive oil made things taste. Also, the coconut oil, depending on what I was preparing, would splatter badly. When cooking fish, there were times my smoke detector would be set off because it would smoke so much. While there were probably things I could have done differently to make the coconut oil work better, I knew there were oils that would not behave the same way, and I was led to try using one of those instead. When what I had ran out, I decided to give canola oil a try.
When I went to the store to look for a bottle of canola oil, I found I could get a good-sized bottle of store-brand canola oil that was cheaper than either the extra virgin olive oil or the coconut oil. A 24-fl oz bottle has been more than sufficient for my needs. It splatters less than coconut oil, and my smoke detector has not gone off while skillet-cooking since I started using it. Pancakes and other food items taste better with the canola oil rather than with the olive oil. Olive oil has a really strong flavor that tends to stand out rather than having a flavor that blends in with the other ingredients. As for salad dressing, I ended up finding some oil-based ones that don’t contain any vinegar or xanthan gum and started getting those.
Canola oil has some controversy surrounding it because of some people making claims that it’s unhealthy. It may not be as healthy as some other varieties of oil, but it’s not unhealthy per se. I definitely have no concerns including it in my own diet. This article has more information. I agree with the conclusion that any food is okay in moderation and that one should consider his or her diet as a whole and not just a particular food item on its own when trying to form a healthy lifestyle.
The canola oil has been working really well for my skillet-cooking and recipes, and I plan to continue getting it and using it as long as it’s available. It was great to find something relatively inexpensive that makes the food items in which it’s used taste better and makes skillet-cooking easier and less messy.
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