Using oil in cooking is a big issue and concern for many people - concerning the fat and cholesterol contents of cooking oil. So what is the best cooking oil? The two clear winners are olive oil, and canola oil.

Both oils contain the best fat composition, with canola being slightly better than olive oil. Sure, both types of oil has many uses, where olive oil is especially good for dressings, and canola oil for stir-frying. However, canola oil is a clear winner for many purposes mainly because it has very little (if any) taste of its own.

Canola oil is NOT harmful to your health, and it can actually help you achieve a better diet. The reason Canola oil is good is because of its fat composition. You should know that there are 3 types of fats: saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated... and 2 of the 3 types of fats are actually 'healthy' fats, and they're actually helpful to your health. Saturated fats is the bad type you want to avoid. The other two types actually help control the level of cholesterol!

And guess what? Canola oil has the best fatty acid ratio. Meaning that canola oil has the best fat ratios of the 3 types of fats in all cooking oil. Research has show that the fatty acid composition of canola oil is most favorable in terms of health benefits. It has lowest levels of saturated fat (7% - bad type), high in monounsaturated fat (61%-good type), and about 22% in polyunsaturated fat (also good.)

So, if you're concerned about using oil in cooking, use canola oil. It not only helps make food taste great, it's also a 'good' oil to use. So using moderate amounts of canola oil in your cooking can help you achieve a better and balanced diet.

Cholesterol and Monounsaturates
Monounsaturated fatty acids, abundant in canola oil, have several advantages over polyunsaturated fatty acids, the hallmark of regular safflower oil. According to recent research, monounsaturates selectively reduce cholesterol in the bloodstream, eliminating more of the “bad” LDL cholesterol than the “good” HDL cholesterol, promoting a high HDL/LDL ratio in the blood. Because HDLs help to move cholesterol through the body and to prevent plaque buildup on arterial walls, a high HDL/LDL ratio is often regarded as more important to heart health than the total amount of circulating cholesterol.

Cholesterol and Canola
The potentially beneficial effect of canola oil on blood cholesterol levels was first demonstrated in 1983 through a study conducted at the University of Manitoba. In the study, a group of healthy male students was monitored for thirty-eight days while consuming a controlled diet in which 38% of the calories came from fat. The first 10 days they ate a typical mixed-fat diet; for the next twenty-one days canola oil was the only fat consumed; and for the final seven days of the study they returned to the mixed-fat diet. The students’ average blood cholesterol levels dropped from nearly 180mg/dl to almost 140 mg/dl during the period canola oil was consumed, and climbed again when the mixed-fat diet was resumed. Other studies with oils high in monounsaturates have shown similar results.