Cooking For Engineers

[digicook]

I find references to a technique called 'healthy saute'. This purports to be a healthier equivalent to the regular saute, without using heated oils. As far as I understand, the idea is to use 1 or 2 tablespoons of broth, heat in a skillet until it starts to bubble, then add chopped onions, stirring for 5 minutes. The point of this is to get the onions to release their own oils, which can then be used to saute other stuff.

Advantages of this method would be:
- less unhealthy fat
- no heated oils, as "research shows that exposing oils to high heat results in the production of oxidized compounds and free radicals"
(Healthy Sauté Cooking Method)

So I'm wondering: if heating, say, olive oil resulted in the production of these compounds, then why would heating the natural oils present in the onions not result in exactly the same thing?

In other words: how healthy is 'healthy sauteing'? Any ideas?

[Dilbert]

first, what is an unhealthy fat?

then, what is a healthy fat?

sounds like another fad method/style to me -

for years and years I've been using olive oil to saute. smoke point-joke point - you should never get there anyway.

if you're going to turn your cooking oils into black tar goop in the pan, might want to consider alternate methods of cooking - like poaching.

[IDontUse]

i'm sorry for not answering your actual question, but please don't saute with olive oil that's a waste of money. Use vegetable oil or clarified butter. These have much higher smoke points. And oils are not fats, and not unhealthy.

[Michael Chu]

[IDontUse]

MANY sautes are cooked far beyond the smoking point of olive oil for best quality, and again, it is a waste of money, high quality olive oils are best used in a vinaigrette or mayonnaise where the flavor is really tasted. And you're right oils are technically fats, but in the industry we generally refer to the solids as fats and liquids as oils.

[Tuscan Chef]

to me oil is fat.

Unhealty fat: Fat with high peroxides. Fat with colesterol included. Fat without free radical protection (e vitamin and others), Fat with acidity, meaning that there are free organic acids. Heated fats. Margarines (hidrogenated oil). Fats that are excrated using chemicals.

Heatly fats. Cold pressed, low temperature natural oil. Including high antioxidant and free radicals catchers. Low acidity (o,1%) to be heated once (never use an oil for fying twice).

Because all of what makes unhealty is also reducing flavour:

Unhealthy fat: bad taste

Healthy fat: good taste.

I guess that's a good start for explaining it......someone wants to add to the list?