In terms of optimising your balance of good fats, Hannah Alderson, a BANT-registered nutritionist and author of Everything I Know About Hormones, says it’s all about ensuring your omega 3 intake remains high, in the face of increased intake of seed oils in commercial cooking, and a subsequent “underconsumption of omega-3-rich foods” by the general population. But it’s not all about oil.
“Increase foods high in omega 3,” she affirms. “You can do this by eating grass-fed meats, algae, walnuts, flaxseeds, chia seeds, and oily fish,” she explains. And if you still have your reservations, “try picking a cold-pressed product over a chemically extracted oil.”
I’ll also be following Alderson’s best practice oil advice, reducing exposure to light, plastic, oxygen, and heat, which she says can promote damage. “Buy oil in glass bottles, especially dark glass, and store it in a dark, cool cupboard,” she recommends. “Use a tight-fitting lid on the bottle, and don’t pour oil directly into a hot pan—let it warm up.”
A final word on seed oils
As is often the case with health and diet, expert advice is dull compared to the horror stories conveyed on TikTok. We aren’t being fed poison and there are no magic bullets. It seems that, as I suspected, we just need to eat a variety of foods in a responsible and balanced way.
Extra virgin olive oil has always been my go-to, partly because I have two small children and so we live a pasta-based lifestyle, and partly because of a snobbish preference for oils presented in green glass bottles with fancy matte labels and swirly text. Berry says that’s great, though, due to EVOO’s consistently proven benefits for heart health and more. But it’s also expensive and has a strong taste which isn’t always suited to other dishes like stir-fries and curries, for example.
Now, though, I’ll feel more confident opting for a more neutral-tasting oil like rapeseed, and the same goes for oil-based baking, which has begun to feel like a pretty indulgent pursuit when using olive oil. And then, of course, there’s butter, which I’ll continue to slather onto toast after discussing it in depth with Berry. “The evidence is really clear that butter increases total cholesterol and cardiovascular risk compared to olive oil and seed oil, but at the end of the day we have got to enjoy our food. A little bit of butter each day isn’t going to harm you.”
And thank goodness for that.
