Olive oil has always been known as the "queen of vegetable oil", enough to see its nutritional advantages, but the price of 1 liter of olive oil is often hundreds of yuan, so that many people are discouraged; in fact, you may wish to choose camellia oil, it has the reputation of "oriental olive oil", but the price is only about half of olive oil.
Is camellia oil more nutritious than olive oil?
Camellia oil, also known as camellia seed oil, is the most abundant and proudest ingredient in olive oil, which is monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA). Monounsaturated fatty acids can help lower the level of "bad cholesterol" in the blood, which can help reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.
The national standards GB/T 23347-2021 and GB/T 11765-2018 show that monounsaturated fatty acids account for 56.4%-87.6% and 69.9%-88.9% of the total fatty acids in olive oil and camellia oil, respectively.
In this way, the upper limit of monounsaturated fatty acids of the two is about the same, but the lower limit of monounsaturated fatty acids, camellia oil is much higher than olive oil. In this way, it seems that it is more advantageous to supplement monounsaturated fatty acids or camellia oil.
If you eat extra virgin olive oil, in addition to being rich in monounsaturated fatty acids, you can also consume some bioactive ingredients, such as phytosterols, vitamin E, squalene, polyphenols, flavonoids, proanthocyanidins, etc.
When it comes to supplementing these bioactive ingredients, freshly squeezed camellia oil is not inferior to extra virgin olive oil at all.
The content of phytosterols, polyphenols, flavonoids, carotenoids, lignin, total triterpenoids and total saponins in freshly squeezed camellia oil is equivalent to that of extra virgin olive oil, although the squalene content of extra virgin olive oil is 5.4 times that of freshly squeezed camellia oil, but the vitamin E and proanthocyanidins content of freshly squeezed camellia oil are about 2 times and 3.3 times that of extra virgin olive oil respectively.
Therefore, freshly squeezed camellia oil is completely comparable to extra virgin olive oil in terms of supplementing bioactive components.
However, the cold-pressed camellia oil sold on the market is to dry the fresh camellia seeds naturally or at a low temperature before squeezing the oil, which will lose part of the bioactive components in this process, so the ability of cold-pressed camellia oil to supplement bioactive ingredients is worse than that of extra virgin olive oil.
Can cold-pressed camellia oil be used for daily stir-frying and frying?
Since cold-pressed camellia oil contains various bioactive components, most of which are afraid of heat, is it suitable for high-temperature cooking such as stir-frying or frying?
1. The monounsaturated fatty acid content of camellia oil is much higher than that of the oil we usually use for stir-frying, such as soybean oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, and peanut oil. Monounsaturated fatty acids are more stable than polyunsaturated fatty acids and are less likely to be oxidized to hydroperoxides at high temperatures, which can damage human DNA and cell structure.
2. About 99% of the components of vegetable oil are fats, which means that the amount of active ingredients is actually very low. In other words, the main purpose of eating camellia oil or olive oil is to ingest monounsaturated fatty acids that are beneficial to health. Besides, all kinds of dark-colored fruits and vegetables can also replenish a lot of antioxidants, and you don't necessarily have to rely on eating oil to replenish them.
3. From a nutritional point of view, high temperature heating will lose the active ingredient that is sensitive to heat, but from a safety point of view, this is a good thing. This is because of their antioxidant capacity, which protects fatty acids and makes them less susceptible to oxidation at high temperatures.
Finally, the price of camellia oil is cheaper than extra virgin olive oil, and it is also suitable for high-temperature cooking, we usually use soybean oil, corn oil, sunflower oil for high-temperature cooking, they are rich in linoleic acid belongs to the n-6 series of fatty acids are pro-inflammatory, these oils are not as stable as olive oil and camellia oil, and are more likely to produce substances harmful to health, so it is still recommended to replace some soybean oil, corn oil, and sunflower oil.
Source: People's Daily Science Editor: Tong Qingliu Responsible Editor: Han Ting Review: Sun Huangrong Issued: Zhang Yonggang The content of this issue is presented to you by Shangluo City Association for Science and Technology and Shangluo News Network Interactive Submission Address E-mail: [email protected] WeChat ID: Shangluo News "slxw01"