Smokin' Hot: Are You Cooking With Extra-Virgin Olive Oil?

I use extra-virgin olive oil liberally and indiscriminately. It goes into salad dressings, marinades and the bottom of frying pans; it's drizzled into the blender for hummus, dumped onto vegetables for roasting and smeared over cast iron pans. I love the smell, the olivey flavor and the sound my over-priced tin makes, which I bought because I loved the design and which I now decant my cheaper olive oil into.

I've started to realize, though, that my promiscuous ways may have a downside. The "smoke point" of an oil (the temperature at which it begins to burn and decompose) is quite low for extra-virgin olive oil (320 degrees Fahrenheit), in fact it's 50% lower than both the more refined/processed extra-light olive oil as well as corn oil.

Why does this matter? Because at the smoke-point the oil starts to give off gaseous fumes, its flavor deteriorates and nutrients are diminished. It's not that it's so terrible to use an oil over it's "smoke point", its just that you're no longer getting the qualities of the oil that you likely chose it for in the first place. I still sometimes use butter, for browning meat, for example, even though I know it might smoke, simply because I'd rather a hint of sweet butter even at the risk of a whiff of sweet smoke.

As a rule of thumb, vegetable oils tend to have a higher smoke point than animal fats (you can cook corn oil at higher temps than butter), and more refined oil has a higher smoke point than less processed ones (canola olive can withstand high temps but flax seed oil can't and "light" olive oil is more stable than the pure stuff.)

It should also be noted that coconut oil is a saturated fat (like butter and lard) and for some people, consuming it, can lead to a rise in cholesterol levels. There is increasing evidence, though, that high cholesterol is not a cause of heart disease and consuming whole foods with high levels of cholesterol (butter, eggs) do not raise ones chances of getting disease. Excessive levels of trans-fats as well as gross over-consumption of all food, will get you sicker much faster than a dollop of butter in the pan.