What is a good replacement for olive oil?

In terms of cooking you could use a low fat margirene to fry your food in, and vinergerette for salad dressing.

Canola oil

Nothing is quite as good for you as olive oil. Does the light olive oil disagree with you too?

@marinelife I’m not sure I’ve ever tried it. My “luck” with digesting fats seems to be hit or miss, usually I just have to wing it and see how it goes.

Another vote for canola oil. I usually mix butter and oil when I cook. It gives you a higher smoking point than either one alone and I love the flavor of butter.

@Adirondackwannabe right now I do most of my cooking in butter. That sounds worse than it is, I just mean I use butter to cook in place of oil, not that I cook excessively in fat.

Canola oil doesn’t bother me, I will try that. Thanks.

@DigitalBlue Butter’s bad rep is an old wives tale. I use it a lot and my cholesterol is excellent. Plus I love the taste. Margarine is nasty stuff, with the hydrogenated fats

Canola is gm and has very little to no nutrient value. Grape seed oil, almond oil are possible. Then there is coconut oil but it has a lower melting point.

Another recommendation is Quintessential Gourmet. They have a website. But they have a plethora of oils and vinegarettes that you can order in small sample sizes and have a nutrient list. You can order online.

Really yummy options. Good luck.

@Adirondackwannabe I’m with you. I am very pro-butter and I think that margarine is repulsive, but I still try not to go crazy with the saturated fats in my diet. Part of it is that I can’t use butter in all of the things that I need oil/fat for. For example: marinating chicken.

@rosehips thanks much, I will check out the site. GM doesn’t especially bother me (I know, blasphemy), but nutritional value does. Almond oil sounds intriguing and I really don’t like coconut. I tried coconut oil for a long time, but I just never developed a taste for it. It’s too… coconutty.

@rosehips What is gm?

If you want to give olive oil a last try I recommend Bertolli Classico specifically.

I would say Canola is the closest.

FYI, I recently had an in depth cardiac assessment and it showed the fats from vegetables and fruits including oils like Canola were also very high in me. I have always had a cholesterol problem. Butter is a very bad problem for me if we are just looking at cholesterol numbers going up and down. I know I have discussed this with @Adirondackwannabe before. In my opinion the people who have cholesterol problems cannot eat cholesterol without their number going up. People who genetically have a better functioning system can eat it and their body compensates.

Lastly, I heard that olive oil loses its benefits once it is heated. Only the cold pressed oil has all the healthy benefits, does anyone have more information on that? Which would mean cooking with it doesn’t help over using another oil, and much of the olive oil we purchase is not cold pressed.

@DigitalBlue Another option might be to try some of the flavored oils, like chili oil, herb infusions, etc. A lot of flavor with a little bit of oil. Don’t try infusing an oil with garlic. That could result in botulism.

@JLeslie luckily, I’ve never had anything but great cholesterol numbers, and high cholesterol doesn’t appear to be a problem in my family. My father, in particular, eats a very high fat diet (he loves olives and olive oil, nuts, and dairy) and at 57 and despite being quite overweight, his cholesterol and blood pressure are excellent. I also eat an egg every other day for breakfast, so, cholesterol in itself doesn’t appear to be a problem for me. (Not that I’m suggesting it may not be an issue for you.)
My digestive issues with fats, specifically, are related to my lack of a gallbladder. I had it removed in my teens and gallbladder disease is rampant in my family, most of us have had them removed, and most of us seem to adjust really poorly to not having one. My digestive system never quite recovered, so I always have to be careful of what I eat if I don’t want to be violently sick.

@DigitalBlue My only objection was to blanket statements about butter being ok. Most of the science shows people with history of high cholesterol and heart disease benefit greatly from a diet of zero cholesterol, and that cholesterol foods do damage. You bviously do not have that problem, which I am completely jealous of, one of my close friend eats eggs and meat and butter and her cholesterol is always perferct. Her family tends to live very long lives.

Back to the gall bladder, I would have thought all fats would bother you in that case, but now that I think about, seems reasonable some oil might be more upsetting to your system than others. My husband had zero negative side effects after his gall bladder was removed, I guess he was lucky. Can you eat pork and chicken with no problem? Both fats can be used in cooking. You can save the fats yourself when cook pork or chicken or buy it in the store. Also, I sometimes buy an oil that has a mix of canola and some others. I don’t know the name, but it might interest you. Safflower oil is another possibility I just thought of.

How do you do eating peanuts or other nuts? I would try peanut oil or walnut oil.

Problem with peanut oil, and sesame oil for that matter, they add a certain flavor to the foods. Some people love it.

Avocado oil!

Rape Oil.

For cooking/sauteing, I use
– sesame oil
– cold-pressed, non-hydrogenated, refined coconut oil
– organic, free-range cow butter (like kerrygold)/ghee.

Look for something with a high smoke point for cooking/sauteing.

Use flaxseed oil for salads.

@JLeslie okay, I follow and I agree, we’re on the same page.
The fat thing is always hit or miss. I seem to do better with animal based fats: dairy, eggs, meat don’t give me much issue. Dairy actually seems to help my stomach, especially yogurt or a glass of lowfat milk. Nonfat doesn’t have the same soothing effect. As for meats, I don’t eat dark or fatty poultry, and I don’t eat much pork, but it’s a good consideration, given that it seems that animal fats are easier for me to tolerate.

Plant fats tend to hit me harder… don’t ask me why. Olive oil is the worst culprit, for me, it makes me sick as a dog even in small amounts. Just a bit drizzled on a salad can have me in agony within minutes. But I can eat olives with no problem, how does that work? It’s a big mystery to me. I also have a really hard time with fried foods (which I don’t really consider to be a bad thing, just makes it all the easier to avoid that junk.)

@Tropical_Willie I love nuts, truly. I eat them regularly, but they are sort of a here or there thing. Sometimes I don’t have a problem with them, sometimes I do. They never make me as ill as the olive oil, and I like them enough to risk a stomachache to eat them. Walnut oil sounds very good, I don’t even know if I considered that as an option.

Thanks for the suggestions, all.

@DigitalBlue Interesting. Maybe there is something in the process? A chemical or something in some olive oils that is not in the fruit? I really don’t know, just guessing out loud. I would think first press, cold pressed olive oil doesn’t have chemicals, but the others might? Possibly worth researching. Along with whether corn oils and others also use chemicals in the process of extracting the oil.

Maybe you can make your own oils? I don’t know how it is done. I know one of my health books talks about making dressings in very good blenders whether they use whole nuts to add some oil to the dressing.

Yeah, I don’t know. To the best of my understanding, the issue is basically that without a gallbladder, my digestive system is essentially always “guessing” (for lack of a better word) just how much bile it needs to digest something. Sometimes I get way too much, and certain foods seem to trigger that reaction more than others, which leads to vomiting and diarrhea. Unpleasant, but true.

With the olives, I always assumed that it is because there is more food substance vs pure oil in the olive, but with the oil there is… just oil. I really don’t know, though. I’ve read that people who have issues can take bile salts or lecithin to aid in the digestion of fat, but it’s been 13 or 14 years, and I guess the trial and error and avoiding certain foods is working okay for me. Sort of. :)

I don’t think your husband is unusual in having no lasting effects from his surgery, I know that a lot of people feel not only fine but better. That’s ideal. The percentage of people who have issues is high, I want to say that I’ve read as many as 40% of people have some kind of trouble after removal. I think I just got lucky~ in being one of the people who have a particularly difficult time. I have chronic dry skin and sometimes I wonder if it is because of my inability to properly absorb fats from my diet.

Interesting. You don’t have a thyroid problem do you?

Sesame seed oil too.

Lots of terrific info here—and I wasn’t even thinking about using anything besides olive oil (which I love to cook with and use on my salads). My two cents… I used to use Canola Oil but like the taste of oliver better.

Just remember that a lot oils other than olive oil and canola/vegetable oil need to be refrigerated or they will go rancid and can cause illness.

@ragingloli When you say “rape oil” I assume you are talking about rape seed oil? It’s the same thing as canola oil, I guess someone thought it sounded somewhat more acceptable.

Soya Oil?

I see several chefs use grapeseed oil as it has no flavor and doesn’t fight with the flavors of the food.

Also, I haven’t had a gall bladder since 2006 and really haven’t had digestive problems like you describe. Do you think you could have food allegies, gluten sensitivity, IBS? Maybe something else is really the cause of the issue.

Best of luck to you.