Animal fats and cooking oils - costs and considerations

Cooking oils and fats are modestly refined animal fats or plant/seed oils that are used in commercial and domestic cooking. You’re probably quite familiar with extra-virgin olive oil and butter. But did you know that there are several cost-competitive alternatives that may be safer and/or healthier to use in regular cooking? Read on to find out more…

So what are the key considerations when choosing a plant oil or animal fat for culinary applications? Whoa, whoa, whoa…. slow down there, tiger. First things first. We need to provide appropriate context for the key questions, suitable folk-wisdom worth discussing regarding ‘saturated’ fats, and maybe some basic chemistry to allow us to discuss the key questions, and provide some fun sorting functionalities that we can use to answer our health and cost considerations about plant oils and animal fats.

Folk wisdom about cooking fats

As many of us are modestly aware, the classical dichotomy in choosing a cooking fat is “butter vs extra-virgin olive oil”, and the preference tends to revolve around choosing a “thermally/oxidatively stable” animal fat that is high in saturated fat (like butter, ghee, or lard) vs using exclusively plant oils (e.g. EVOO, avocado, canola) for cooking. Hint: the plant oil company has been edged in on animal fats for a long time, and saturated fat has turned into everyone’s favorite scapegoat. Many “health” magazines even go so far as to tout unsubstantiated benefits of certain poly-unsaturated fats. To add confusion, some PUFAs can even be essential micronutrients (we cannot synthesize them and they must be obtained through diet). There’s a devil in the details…

Aren’t plant oils better?

Well… yes and no. They have exactly one advantage, generally speaking; plant oils are low in saturated fat. Yes, that saturated fat, the type that clogs things inside your body.

Thank you for reading. That’s it, that’s the whole story… roll credits…

Actually… no…

Strictly speaking, that is a broad rule of thumb, and in reasonable amounts, cooking with animal fats can turn out to be healthier for one incredibly technical other reason: oxidation during cooking.

Wait… what?

So, saturated fats are mostly bad, true. But cooking exclusively with plant/seed oils can have negative health effects too. Cooking without certain animal fats introduces “free radicals” or “radical oxidative species (ROS)”. Don’t believe me? We’ll dive into the chemistry later. But let me first lend some credit to this broad and generally helpful rule of thumb.

Challenging the rule of thumb

Many Americans can benefit from diets with low saturated fat content. Most doctors recommend adjustments to diet by doing the following:

• intermittent fasting
• takeout/dine out < 7 month
• caloric restriction, favoring calories earlier in the day
• substitution of poultry, fish, or vegetables for red meat
• preference of fresh herbs and ground spices over sauces
• use of fresh or canned vegetables to increase fiber and slow nutrient absorption

This is fairly standard par for the course for anyone concerened with watching their weight, their blood sugar, and/or their heart health. So, naturally one wonders, what are the nutritionists and chefs doing so well when it comes to food preparation, and more and more Americans are not?

Goal of this post

In this short blog entry, I would like the reader to leave with at least 6 considerations in mind regarding cooking fats/oils and their role in human health and metabolism.

1. Animal fats and plant/seed oils can be healthy to cook with in small amounts, especially when incorporating fresh low-fat meats, poultry, and lots of vegetables. (Key concepts: saturated/unsaturated fat content, cholesterol and lipoproteins, PUFA marketing)
2. Some plant/seed oils are often marketed as very healthy, but some have oxidation byproducts that you consume in steady amounts over time, putting pressure on your immune system, antioxidants, and other damage repair systems throughout your cells and body. (Key concepts: flash-point, poly-unsaturated fats as redox sinks free radicals sources, cholesterol, PUFA marketing)
3. Some omega fatty-acids are thought to be important in roles beyond brain and heart health (which are oversold in non-primary literature), including immune support, endo/exo-cytosis (uptake or clearance by detox organs such as kidney/liver and intestines), cancer signaling, brain health, mood disorders, mental health, and more. Although there aren’t any good rules of thumb when optimizing diets for fat health in this way, consider the presence/absence of certain categories of fatty lipid chains that neither the human body nor its microbiota may synthesize. (Key concepts: saturated/unsaturated fat content, oxidation-reduction chemistry, PUFA marketing)
4. Note that cooking fats are not the only fatty component of our food. A holistic view of healthy fats must consider the lipids/fats from the protein source and whether or not the human body or oral/gut microbiota can synthesize the desired fatty lipid chain through the diet. (Key concepts: saturated/unsaturated fat content, poly-unsaturated fats, health/nutritional needs)
5. Recall¹ that certain omega fatty acids are essential nutrients, meaning they must be obtained through our diet. Recall also that certain other lipids, such as monounsaturated fats, or certain polyunsaturated fats can be synthesized. Some of these (particularly certain poly-unsaturated fatty acids or PUFAs) may represent unnecessary oxidation targets during cooking, and can introduce free-radicals to the human body over time, which may strain organs and even cause cancer. (Key concepts: essential nutrients, saturated unsaturated fats, gut microbiome, uses of unsaturated fats in the human body beyond energy storage/transfer)
6. I’d also like the reader to have a better understanding the difference between molecular cholesterol (a small molecule) that is part of the more common health term “cholesterol”, which often refers to a ratio of low-density lipoprotein (LDL ‘cholesterol’) to high-density lipoprotein (HDL ‘cholesterol’) and the way humans transport and utilize fats (which do not dissolve well in blood), and how the VLDL/LDL/HDL components of fats dissolved in blood differ from “serum triglycerides”, which are free-floating and poorly soluble fats. These components should improve the readers understanding of the way fats/lipids play a role in atherosclerosis/heart disease, stroke, lipid-sensitive pancreatitis, MASH, and more. (Key concepts: saturated/unsaturated fats, cholesterol molecule vs health cholesterol, LDL/HDL, triglycerides, energy metabolism, solubility)

Cooking oils and animal fats

TODO: Add an objective function and/or search feature to describe the criteria we are looking to optimize (minimize omega-6 that are very prevalent in land-fats, minimize saturated fat where possible (loose constraint), maximize omega-3, minimize cost)

Fat name	Total fat (g)	mono-unsaturated fat (g)	poly-unsaturated fat (g)	omega-3 PUFA (g)	omega-6 PUFA (g)	Saturated fat (g)	Cost (USD/qt)	Notes / properties
Avocado oil	14	9.88	1.89 (±)	0.134	1.75	1.62	16.39 - 39.76	High flash point, mild taste, pricey
Butter	11.5	3.32	0.43 (Ø)	0.04	0.31	7.17	3.75 - 8.80	High in saturated fat, standard for cooking
Canola / rapeseed	14	8.76	3.54 (±)	1.04	2.49	0.93	3.20 - 6.00	High in PUFA, high flash point
Cocoa butter	13.6	4.47	0.408 (±)	0.395	0	8.12		Pricey, scarce, low in PUFA
Coconut oil	11.2	0.86	0.23 (±)	0.003	0.23	11.2	13.71 - 15.31	Moderate thermal properties, low in PUFA, moderate taste bias
Corn oil	14	3.88	7.41 (±)	0.15	7.27	1.88	4.00	Affordable, high flash point, very high in PUFA
Cottonseed	14	2.49	7.27 (±)	0.03	7.21	3.63		Affordable, very high in PUFA, mild taste,
EVOO	14	9.58	1.33 (±)	0.09	1.24	2.17	15.76 - 37.68	Moderate price, fraudulent market, good flash point, moderate PUFA, high in polyphenols/antioxidants
Ghee	13.9	4.02	0.52 (±)	0.2	0.32	8.87	10.00	Moderate price, low in PUFA,
Goose	12.8	7.26	1.41 (Ø)	0.06	1.25	3.55		Scarce, moderate PUFA
Grapeseed	13.6	2.19	9.51 (±)	0.01	9.47	1.31	11.99	Affordable, low flash point, very high in PUFA
Lard	12.8	5.79	1.43 (±)	0.13	1.31	5.02		Affordable, high flash point, moderate PUFA
Macadamia	14	11	0.5 (Ø)	0	0	2		Scarce, pricey, low in PUFA
Margarine	8.37	2.7	3.71 (±)	0.38	3.32	1.69	6.00	Affordable, very high in PUFA
Palm kernel	13.6	1.55	0.22	0.22	0	11.1		Strong choice for commercial applications, affordable, very low in PUFA
Peanut	14	7.99	2.79 (±)	0.05	2.76	2.27	2.99	Affordable, moderate PUFA, high flash point
Red palm	14	6	1.5 (Ø)	0	0	6		moderate PUFA
Rice bran	13.6	5.34	4.76	0.22	4.54	2.68		mild taste, high in PUFA
Safflower	13.6	1.96	10.1	0	10.1	0.84		Affordable, very high in PUFA
Sesame	13.6	5.4	5.67 (±)	0.04	5.67	1.93		Pricey, nutty flavor, high in PUFA
Soybean	14	3.09	7.796	0.956	0	2.08		Affordable, very high in PUFA
Sunflower	14	2.65-7.79	3.95-8.94 (Ø)	0-0.122	9.2	1.22-1.77	23.98	Depending on formulation, fat composition, thermal, and nutritive properties can vary widely. Very high in PUFA
Tallow	12.8	5.35	0.51 (±)	0.08	0.4	6.37	10.40	Affordable, low in PUFA
Shortening	12.8	5.27	3.6 (±)	0.24	3.35	3.2	10.60	Affordable, high in PUFA

This table uses data that has been spot-checked and collated from https://nutritionadvance.com/types-of-cooking-fats-and-oils ², the dataset checked from the original government source known as the USDA Food Central Database (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov, ³)

Ø - indicates USDA Food Central poly-unsaturated (PUFA) sums are more “off” (e > 0.03g), likely due to a sampling, instrumentation/methodology issue, or transcription issue between the primary source ³ and the secondary source ² from which numbers were collated.

± - indicates the USDA Food Central PUFA sums are off by a trivial amount (arbitrarily selected as 0.03g)

[Caution] : Cooking fats with high poly-unsaturated fats are not necessarily healthier, and oxidize at lower temperatures. They may turn rancid when stored for long periods or cooked at higher temperatures. Poly-unsaturated fats, while not saturated fats, deserve special health considerations when used for everyday cooking. Relative fat content values are in grams and normalized to 1 tbsp (13.6-14g) and the proportions of fatty acid content scale linearly. Refined olive oil was omitted from comparison to Food Central Database data collated and corrected where possible from ‘nutritionadvance’. Sunflower MUFA/PUFA oil content properties can vary by formulation. Some descriptive statistics can be found by the following URL or searching for sunflower oils using Food Central search https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-search?type=SR%20Legacy&query=sunflower

1. Lehninger, Albert L. Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry: David L. Nelson, Michael M. Cox. New York: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, 2004. ↩︎

2. Michael Joseph, Ms. (2025, September 25). 25 types of cooking fat: Nutrition, Fatty Acids, Pros & Cons. Nutrition Advance. https://nutritionadvance.com/types-of-cooking-fats-and-oils ↩︎ ↩︎²

3. Fooddata Central Frontpage. USDA FoodData Central. (n.d.). https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/ ↩︎ ↩︎²