Wednesday, January 17, 2018

(Family Features)—When cooking for your family, selecting the best ingredients for a heart-healthy meal can be challenging, and there is one ingredient that is often the core of any recipe: cooking oil. However, navigating the cooking oil aisle can be confusing; this guide breaks down everything the home chef needs to know about cooking with oil.

Heart-Health Focused. Maintaining healthy cholesterol levels is important to your heart health, and when it comes to impact on cholesterol, not all cooking oils are created equal. Next time you find yourself reaching for extra virgin olive oil at the grocery store, consider swapping it out for corn oil, which a study shows can help lower cholesterol two times more than extra virgin olive oil. Corn oil also has nearly five times the amount of polyunsaturated fats compared to olive oil. These heart-healthy polyunsaturated fats help reduce cholesterol levels in your blood.  

A Gut Decision. When it comes to lowering your cholesterol and staying heart healthy, go with your gut. Corn oil contains cholesterol-blocking plant sterols—plant-based micronutrients that help block the absorption of cholesterol in your gut and work to prevent bad cholesterol (LDL) from entering the bloodstream. Corn oil contains nearly four times more cholesterol-blocking plant sterols than olive oil, three times as many as vegetable oil and nearly 1.5 times more than canola oil.

Sourcing the Best Ingredients. Today, more and more families are paying close attention to where their food comes from and prefer locally sourced ingredients. Opting for local food can give you more confidence in the ingredients you use in your family's meals.  

Multipurpose Functionality. Whether you fancy yourself a top-notch baker, grill master or are just starting out, each ingredient selected plays an important role in obtaining the meal's desired taste. Extra virgin olive oil has a strong flavor that can change the taste of the foods you cook. Corn oil is an all-purpose cooking oil with a neutral taste that lets the true flavors of your dish come through, making it the perfect ingredient for heart-healthy dishes like pan-fried salmon. Or you can use it as a dressing over a bed of spinach.  

Corn oil can also handle the heat in the kitchen because of its high smoke point (450 Fahrenheit), making it a great, all-purpose cooking oil for everything from grilling and sauteing to stir frying and baking. This is key for crafting quality meals at home because once a smoke point is exceeded, the food flavor and nutritional value are negatively affected.

Source: Mazola Corn Oil

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