What is oil, why do we cook with it, and why do things taste so much better with it?
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>What is oil
Oil is fat. That’s all. Be it fat from seeds, nuts, or animals, it’s all fat.
>why do we cook with it
Fat is very good at 3 things
– Sticking to things
– Transferring heat into things
– Tasting good
The first & second parts are particularly useful with cooking. Try to cook a brussel sprout without oil on an open pan. It will not cook evenly; it’ll burn.
Air doesn’t transfer heat well. That means the only part of the food getting heated is the surface directly touching the pan. If it ain’t flat hugging that pan, it ain’t cooking, and the stuff that is hugging the pan might not be cooking evenly all over
When you coat food in even just a little film of oil, that oil coats the food, sticks to it, and spreads the heat out evenly across it.
>why do things taste so much better with it?
Fat is very calorie dense; It’s why we store energy as fat in our bodies.
Your body likes sugar because it’s basically instant energy; You eat it, it burns like tissue paper into energy ready to be used. That’s good for survival
With fat, it’s actually pretty difficult to breakdown. But, it breaks down into a lot of energy. Sugar is good because it’s immediate satisfaction, fat is good because it holds 2× the energy as sugar; It’s just on a slow release.
On top of that, your body needs many fats to function. Many fatty acids have jobs in your body on their own. Omega-3 and Omega-6 are the well known ones.
A lot of vitamins can also only dissolve in fat. Vitamins A, D, E, and K for example can’t dissolve in water. You have to dissolve it to move it around the body, so fats are needed. This is actually why it can be healthy to drizzle a little raw olive oil into a soup; Helps absorb things.
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