Care with cooking oils

Depending on what oils you buy and how you cook and store them, oils can change from being healthy to unhealthy. Free radicals, marauding cells that run riot through your body causing disease and premature aging, form when an oil is heated to a high temperature, if it is left in the sunlight, or if you keep reheating it. Buy only organic, cold-pressed, unrefined vegetable oils (such as extra-virgin olive oil). Always use olive oil in cooking because it’s a monounsaturated oil and has less chance of creating free-radical damage. If, during cooking, the oil starts to smoke, you have a visible sign that you’re damaging it, which means that it’s time to turn down the heat. Once you’ve used a batch of oil, discard it and don’t’ be tempted to use it again. For the safest forms of cooking, try other methods, such as steaming and baking, instead of frying.