How should I Cook meat&fish optimally

Title .. From what I understand, cooking with coconut and butter oils is best.

Question is, What would be healthier/nutritious choice of cooking? pan or oven? regarding all kinds of meat and fish of course.

Another question: should I bother buying non-grass fed butter to use as a cooking oil?

And why should I make the butter to a ghee? (how would it benefit), thanks! 

Also, I find cooking meat&fish with coconut oil ruins the taste experience, how do you feel with it? do you eat it despite the taste or are you using a different kind of oil?

Ghee is without the normal proteins that are found in butter. When you heat butter, it's those proteins that burn first, so without them you can fry at higher temperatures.

Despite what some people say, high quality extra virgin olive oil is also excellent for frying. Though finding high quality oil can be difficult and expensive in some countries. Often, unscrupulous suppliers will buy cheap oil and pass it off as olive oil, so you need to be careful.

thecolin said:

 

Despite what some people say, high quality extra virgin olive oil is also excellent for frying. Though finding high quality oil can be difficult and expensive in some countries. Often, unscrupulous suppliers will buy cheap oil and pass it off as olive oil, so you need to be careful.

ASAIK it has to be refined for high heat cooking correct? I suppose as long as it isn't smoking you haven't hit the smoke point so you're ok, but sometimes it's hard to tell if its your oil smoking or whatever is cooking.

TANSTAAFL said:

ASAIK it has to be refined for high heat cooking correct? I suppose as long as it isn't smoking you haven't hit the smoke point so you're ok, but sometimes it's hard to tell if its your oil smoking or whatever is cooking.

I think refined olive oil is just oil that is originally such poor quality that they filter it heavily to make something bland but edible. (http://www.oliveoilsource.com/definition/refined-olive-oil). Real extra virgin olive oil is very low in the acidity (at least in Italian law) that can lower an oil's smoke point.

I don't deep fry a lot, but I use extra virgin olive oil when I do, and I've never had it smoke. Sauteing in a full pan will never reach those kinds of temperatures.

For most applications the monounsaturated fats in olive oil are highly resistant to oxidation. It actually appears to have a higher smoking point than virgin coconut oil, and on par with a lot of other highly stable fats. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_point) While there are fats with higher smoking points, olive oil is safely in the range you'd normally be cooking in.

But like I said, it depends on getting a source of high quality olive oil. Even though Italy is famous for olive oil, it's a consumer desire that often gets exploited. I'd try and get a local product if at all possible. There's a really fascinating look at olive oil production, and it's shady side in 'Extra Virginity' by Tom Mueller if you want to learn more (http://www.amazon.com/Extra-Virginity-Sublime-Scandalous-World/dp/0393343618).

AzureWarrior said:

Also, I find cooking meat&fish with coconut oil ruins the taste experience, how do you feel with it? do you eat it despite the taste or are you using a different kind of oil?

Don't do that! It's waste of time making foods that doesn't taste well. You may not forget that 'feeling good' and 'having a good time' is part of being healthy.

Coconut oil ruins it for you? I never thought I'd hear that! I'm such a huge fan of it I just can't imagine it. 

Coconut oil is definitely the easiest way to go, but if you don't like that, and taking into account Jacob's very valid point, you could indeed go with high quality olive oil (can be hard to find) or any or a combination of the options listed here. Haven't really tested them myself, apart from ghee, but I'm sure they all taste delicious.

thecolin said:

I think refined olive oil is just oil that is originally such poor quality that they filter it heavily to make something bland but edible. (http://www.oliveoilsource.com/definition/refined-olive-oil). Real extra virgin olive oil is very low in the acidity (at least in Italian law) that can lower an oil's smoke point.

 

I don't deep fry a lot, but I use extra virgin olive oil when I do, and I've never had it smoke. Sauteing in a full pan will never reach those kinds of temperatures.

 

For most applications the monounsaturated fats in olive oil are highly resistant to oxidation. It actually appears to have a higher smoking point than virgin coconut oil, and on par with a lot of other highly stable fats. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_point) While there are fats with higher smoking points, olive oil is safely in the range you'd normally be cooking in.

 

But like I said, it depends on getting a source of high quality olive oil. Even though Italy is famous for olive oil, it's a consumer desire that often gets exploited. I'd try and get a local product if at all possible. There's a really fascinating look at olive oil production, and it's shady side in 'Extra Virginity' by Tom Mueller if you want to learn more (http://www.amazon.com/Extra-Virginity-Sublime-Scandalous-World/dp/0393343618).

Good stuff. That book is on my 20 thousand plus queue...will have to bump it up.

 I rarely ever have to use oil to cook beef though it would make sense with chicken. 

I can't stand cooked fish so I would make that easy and stick to sashimi and ceviche. 

Ghee, home made clarified butter olive oil and coconut oil are my go to fats. And despite what the paleo crowd would have you think you should not eat unlimited amounts of it. Calories do in fact matter if you are eating a ton of them. The good news is that if your fats come with veggies you will fill up pretty quickly and won't be able to overeat. Eating with refined carbs is where it gets dangerous

Hmm... is ~3/2 cups kidney beans with 3/4 cup of rice okay for a dinner in terms of carb, protein, fat balance?

GenericGymnast said:

Hmm... is ~3/2 cups kidney beans with 3/4 cup of rice okay for a dinner in terms of carb, protein, fat balance?

No

I use EVOO, butter, and coconut oil, mainly.  Just as much as is needed, but I don't skimp either.  I have been trying to keep cooking temperature down for meats if I can.  I recall reading some information that cooking meats at high temps is bad; I cannot remember the specifics.  

California is putting out some very good olive oils, with high quality controls.  I tasted some great stuff at a small vendor's place two weekends ago.   

If i'm using EVOO, I typically only use California olive oils. There has been many findings that Italian olive oils are cut with canola, soy, and other shitty oils. 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Greek olive oil (Kalamata) is pretty good, too.

thecolin said:

 

But like I said, it depends on getting a source of high quality olive oil. Even though Italy is famous for olive oil, it's a consumer desire that often gets exploited. I'd try and get a local product if at all possible. There's a really fascinating look at olive oil production, and it's shady side in 'Extra Virginity' by Tom Mueller if you want to learn more (http://www.amazon.com/Extra-Virginity-Sublime-Scandalous-World/dp/0393343618).

Sean Hunter said:

If i'm using EVOO, I typically only use California olive oils. There has been many findings that Italian olive oils are cut with canola, soy, and other shitty oils. 

It has nothing to do with Italian oils. I assure you that world class olive oil is easily found here. There are probably high quality oils to be found to some degree or another everywhere there is an olive tree.

It has to do with the export market and what happens when a product starts getting bought and sold by bulk purchasers. There are certainly unscrupulous exporters in Italy, there are also a lot of people who make bad oil then pass it through Italy to bottle it because they know it will sell better. But this transaction also requires a buyer to not bother checking if the thousands and thousands of litres of oil they purchase is genuine or not. There are tests, but why would they bother when there are barely any restrictions in the US on what can be called 'extra virgin' (the rules in Italy are very specific). It's easier just to pass the buck.

There were a bunch of stories in the media a while back based on the book I linked to above. Except instead of reporting the reality, which I've more or less summarized above, it became a story of unscrupulous Italians selling to unwitting Americans (which is complete BS). I think it was in part a media campaign to push sales of American oil.

As I said previously, it's about buying locally, not about what country name is on the bottle. They are also making good oils in Texas from what I understand.

Sean Hunter said:

There has been many findings that Italian olive oils are cut with canola, soy, and other shitty oils.

As far as i know none of olive oils which are in sale in markets are 100% olive oil, no matter where it is from.

U.C. Davis recently did a study where it collected a variety of olive oils from grocery store shelves and tested the contents.  The study did indeed find that many containers marked as olive oil were cut with other oils.  These were all products that had been imported into the United States.  Another problem with foreign produced and imported oils was that the oil was old or rancid.  There is no reason to discern from this that there are not imported olive oils of very high quality, but caveat emptor.  The irony here in California is that we have great olive oil being made in our own state, but what is being sold in stores is almost entirely coming by way of foreign import.  You have to go to specialized vendors to get local stuff.  

Paf said:

As far as i know none of olive oils which are in sale in markets are 100% olive oil, no matter where it is from.

In the case of California Olive Oils, to receive the approval of the California Olive Oil Council, each batch of olive oil has to be both chemically and professionally taste-tested for purity to be called EVOO and receive the COOC stamp of approval...I only buy olive oils with this stamp of approval on the bottle. 

http://olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/research/files/report041211finalreduced.pdf

Sean Hunter said:

In the case of California Olive Oils, to receive the approval of the California Olive Oil Council, each batch of olive oil has to be both chemically and professionally taste-tested for purity to be called EVOO and receive the COOC stamp of approval...I only buy olive oils with this stamp of approval on the bottle. 

FYI, they use (and is undoubtedly based on) the same national definition by which extra virgin olive oil is allowed to be sold within Italy.

Wolf with one Ear said:

http://olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/research/files/report041211finalreduced.pdf

As I suspected, it's an industry financed research group. This doesn't invalidate the findings, as I said, people in California shouldn't be buying olive oil from across the planet. But the study should be taken in context.

thecolin, I respect your passion for Italian Olive Oils

It's not my intention to promote one thing over another. I simply wanted to clarify the reality behind the recent media campaign.

thecolin said:

Completely false, where did you hear that?

From quite much medias from my country same as from some medias from US and UK.

Perhaps it's just a bit of confusion around the fact that there is a lot of adulterated olive oil in the world.

But there certainly are lots of olives oils that are 100% pure.