Lately, people have become awful conscious about their health, which isn’t awful, but how they put mismatched facts into judging food is! One such mismatched fact is that you should choose your oil based on its heating point.

What is the heating point? we’ll get on that ship later.

First, let us understand the subject, and then we’ll go to its properties.

Our subject today will be olive oil. All the different varieties of that!

Olive oil, the Mediterranean beauty mantra label, has now made its way into the most health-conscious recipes. Lots of people now use olive oil to cook, garnish their salad, bake their cakes, fry their pretzels, and so, the oil goes into more popular cooking-related processes.

Why the sudden increase in its usage?

The world was used to butter, ghee, and purified oils, however, as it would turn out in the coming year between the 1990s to early 2010s, those weren’t some of the healthiest choices. Which led to a quick turn!

People started looking for better options, luckily we found it.

For a brief time, olive oil continued to reign as the healthiest oil, however, this was not long-lived.

There is a controversy: Olive Oil Heating Point!

What is it all about?

Before we jump right on the heating point for olive oil, we have to understand what is olive oil. How does it come? What constitutes olive oil? What are its benefits?

So, let us explore how can olive oil be used for cooking. Should you no longer use it for cooking? And primarily, why, if at all, should you be using olive oil for cooking?

What is olive oil?

Olive oil is the liquid fat obtained from olives, fruits of the olive tree. Cultivation of olive trees, though now being done all around the globe, mainly started in the Mediterranean region, with evidence going all the way back up to 8000 years ago.

You may have read somewhere that olive oil has medicinal properties. Well, this is backed by ancient books. suggesting that olive oil was not just only a part of one’s diet, but it was also used for medicine, lamp fuel, soaps, and skin nourishment.

However, not all types work the same.

What are the different types of olive oils available now?

All the different names and types you might hear comes from this one same source: Olive. The question arises! What separates them? How are they graded into these different categories? Well, to explain, your olive oil is graded on the parameters of its acidity. The level of acidity gets determined by the content of free oleic acid, which indicates to what amount the fats have broken down.

Broadly there are 3 types of olive oils: extra virgin, virgin, regular.

  1. Extra virgin olive oil

This is the purest form of olive fat you will get, and is quite under-statedly considered to be one of the healthiest fats we get. It is extracted from olives by a mechanical method called ‘cold pressing’, which prevents the nutrients from being altered in high temperatures. It has negligible acid contents measuring around 0.8 on the scale as compared to its counterparts. What makes the extra virgin olive oil so desirable is the natural flavor and aroma. Extra virgin olive can also be drunk without mixing any other ingredient. It also has a high level of antioxidants and nutrients making it exceptional.

2. Virgin olive oil

Virgin olive oil, just like extra virgin olive oil, is obtained by mechanical methods like ‘cold pressing’, however, its contents are slightly varying. Virgin olive oil leans on a more acidic front ranging from about 0.8 to 2.0 on the scale. It comes with a lesser preserved flavor and aroma of the fruit. It has a comparatively lower level of antioxidants and nutrients than the former. But, it’s not a discard. Virgin olive oil is a good product too, and the health benefits of using virgin olive oil are nearly the same as EVOO.

3. Refined olive oil

Refined olive is also extracted the same way as extra virgin or virgin olive oil is, then what makes it different and why the usage of “refined”? While the pre-production is the same, the separation comes when filters and treatments are mixed in the process. The additional processing of it using high temperatures and chemicals make it tasteless, odorless, and colorless. A little extra virgin olive oil is added to it to provide some flavor, color, and smell of olives. This processing is done to increase the shelf life of the oil.

One should also note that refined virgin olive oil is the most commonly found olive oil with a much cheaper budget and a much longer shelf life. However, it doesn’t hold a candle to the benefits of using virgin oils.

So, let us get back to what our topic is. The heating point of olive oil.

Does it vary for each type?

How much does it differ in that case?

Which olive oil can we use for cooking?

We can’t be using refined products. That’s a standard. The more refinement has gone into something, the less original it is! When you compare refined olive oil with more pure oil, you find out it has gone through so much of mixing and heating that it has lost a lot of its claimed properties.

An inferior quality product which gets commonly used just because it can be found at the nearest outlet. Finding and checking for extra virgin olive oil is rather difficult.

But then…

Cooking with altered stuff has been linked to poor health. So, the purest form of cooking oil could be used. We may find it difficult to source extra virgin olive oil, despite how healthy it is. Think of it from a manufacturer’s point of view, cold pressing is not a mechanical job. You need human labor for it, and at that, you need people with the right levels of patience and skill. Moreover, it is such a detailed daunting task, it costs them a lot of time and yield risk. However, that is the most unadulterated method of sourcing an oil.

Naturally, it’s much cheaper to provide oil that can be made within hours using lesser employees.

It is not to say that refined olive oil is trash. It’s not. It offers a lot of benefits. However, if you just had the original variant, you could tell the difference rather easily.

So, we should ideally be using extra virgin olive oil for cooking. What is the heating point for extra virgin olive oil?

Before we touch on the olive oil heating point, let us first examine the benefits of cooking with olive oil.

Please note these are general benefits, not belonging to only the pure quality oil. However, the more virgin your olive oil is, the more benefits you get!

Health Benefits of Cooking with Extra Virgin/Virgin Olive Oil

Heart Benefits

Olive oil is loaded with monounsaturated fats and anti-oxidants, which is exactly what a healthy heart needs. Moreover, it keeps the bad cholesterol in check and prevents the risk of cardiac disorders greatly.

Recommended for Cancer, Alzheimer

Ask any good medical professional and he will tell you that olive is no lesser than an elixir. Recommended by doctors to those who suffer from severe diseases, this product has medicinal properties. Because of olive oil’s anti-inflammatory properties, it’s great for cancer patients who struggle with malignance and tumor spread. Moreover, since olive has benefits packed for your mental health as well, Alzheimer will be at bay.

Good for Digestion

It has been found that olive oil is the healthiest fat on the planet, which also makes it easy to digest. Often used as a laxative too, it can help you regulate your digestion. Moreover, olive oil does not have a strange flavor too, which can spoil your appetite.

Good for your eyes

Anything that’s loaded with Vitamins, especially Vitamin A, is bound to keep your sight in check. Voila! Introducing the very basic oil that you will use to cook, which can help you with maintaining a 100% checked vision.

Skin Benefits

Olive oil massages make your skin glow. However, did you know intaking this oil will keep your skin looking young, supple, and radiant? Not many people would know this! Consuming olive oil could be more beneficial than applying it directly. Since olive oil contains comedogenic products, it can lead to clogged oil pores. However, you can always rinse the oil off your skin, if you fear blocked pores.

Anti-inflammatory

This is especially helpful if you deal with acne, infections, etc, where the body naturally gets inflamed.

All this and more is in store!

If we regularly consume olive oil!

However, like we mentioned right at the start, the consumption of olive oil observed a certain resistance. The word about its heating point not being high enough. Why does it matter for olive oil? Why should the heating point be high?

What is Smoke or Heating Point?

By definition, every material has a temperature at which it starts to break into tinier atoms with its basic assemblage. For oils, that range is usually between 300-450 Fahrenheit. Extra virgin olive oil’s heating point is lower than refined olive oil.

Often when looking to invest in cooking oil, customers opt for oils that have a higher smoke point. The reasoning is obvious! The higher its smoke point, the lower are the chances of the oil breaking into harmful fats and undesirable components.

However, as research points out, olive oil has a much better performance at higher temperatures. In a study conducted, extra virgin olive oil was the last one to hold the ground at higher temperatures.

So, extra virgin olive oil is indeed safe for cooking.

We must also note that olive oil contains considerable volumes of monosaturated fats and good antioxidant levels.

These may lead to a more structured integrity. Certain additives can enhance the chemical properties of an oil, making it more stable.

So, the purer an oil gets, the lesser its resistance to a breakdown at harsh cooking points.

The more corrupted or less “virgin” your olive oil gets, the slower it burns. You may feel that is ideal.

However, you would be pleasantly surprised to learn that even though extra virgin olive burns at significantly lower temperatures, it supplements your dish with nutrients. Thus, heating point alone should not be a criterion for picking out oils.

We should look at the impact olive has even as it crumbles.

Another important factor is while recording temperatures, experiments are conducted in a highly controlled room. A room with limited oxygen supply! However, real kitchen conditions vary greatly. So much so that actual practical smoke points are likely to be much above the ones recorded in laboratories!

What you can make of this fact is that you’re probably not even going to reach the smoke point of olive oil when you cook in your home.

We understand your concern that excessive heat can damage oil, and lead to chemical bonds’ decomposition. When that happens to saturated or polyunsaturated fats, they react with oxygen and produce harmful left-overs. However, since your olive oil is devoid of those, you can rest assured that even a temperature beyond its heating point of 390 will not lead to health struggles.

Final Words

Olive oil is always a good choice to be used into cooking. You would be surprised to note that even the adulterated processed olive oil produces healthy meals. However, the more virgin your olive oil is, the better the benefits!

So, if you have been lured into buying refined olive oil, please do not fall into that scamming trap!

Though it’s true your processed oil has a higher temperature stability, the virgin oils too can hold their candle high. Moreover, the health benefits are numerous. It is best we go for the cleanest form of olive oil available in the market to cook healthily.