Difference between Olive Oil and Vegetable Oil
Oil, it's what we love to cook with. Oil can make an ordinary food dish look appetizing. In fact, some people find that anything that you deep fry in oil is far more appealing to the old taste buds. In addition, oil is an everyday part of every cooking session and tends to be one of the primary ingredients in cooking normal food. However too much oil can wreak havoc on your arteries and heart. Manufacturers of cooking oil are constantly trying to find new ways to limit the harmful side effects of cooking oil. Surprisingly some cooking oils can be good for your health such as olive oil.
Health Benefits
Conventional vegetable oil tends to have little or no health benefits, in fact some vegetable oils can be bad for your health, which can lead to heart disease and clogged arteries as they contain trans fats which can cause obesity and heart disease. On the other hand, olive oil can be beneficial to one's health, especially extra virgin olive oil which goes through minimal processing and can preserve the olive oil in it's natural state. Thus, when it comes to health benefits, olive oil has plenty of it. Olive oil can contain essential fatty acids, which are really good for you and olive increases your good cholesterol and reduces your bad cholesterol.
Color and Texture
When it comes to color, conventional cooking oil has a very slick and orange/yellow color which can turn brown when used repeatedly in the fryer, for example when cooking fried chicken repeatedly using the same oil. On the other hand, olive oil tends to be a nice clear green color, which is naturally the color of green olives. Olive oil is a little less sticky than conventional oil and has a smoother texture.
Uses and Cost
Conventional cooking oil is used for cooking/frying almost anything. Almost everyone around the world uses it for cooking and it's quite affordable, enough to be used in daily cooking activities. On the other hand, olive oil tends to be more expensive and ordinary people cannot use it in their daily cooking because of the high cost. As a compromise many places in the Middle East use it as a topping over their staple diet, such as zaatar, hummus and tahini. Americans tend to use olive oil more in salad dressing and in Mediterranean appetizers.
Summary
- Oil is an everyday cooking item which we use to cook almost anything, be it fried chicken or french fries. Our foods would be uninteresting if it wasn't for cooking oil, however, too much cooking oil can be bad for our health.
- Olive oil is great for one's health as it contains essential fatty acids, which can also lower bad cholesterol and increase good cholesterol.
- Conventional cooking oil tends to be yellow/orange in color and is very slick, while olive oil is usually transparent green and is less slick.
- Cooking oil is used in daily cooking throughout the world and is usually an all purpose cooking ingredient.
