Are there fats you should be eating?

How to Make Good-for-You Fried Food

Frying food can fry your heart. Unless you use olive oil or sunflower oil.

That’s the word from researchers in Spain, who have concluded that frying food in olive oil or sunflower oil is not linked to heart disease or a premature death, as are other types of oil used in frying.

Heart disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity, have been linked to eating fried food.

The study: Led by Pilar Guallar-Castillon of Autonomous University of Madrid, the team examined the cooking habits and health of 40,757 Spaniards who ranged in age from 29 to 69 years old. At the beginning of the study, none of the participants had heart disease. They were divided into one of four groups, depending on how much fried food they consumed. In Spain, olive oil and sunflower oil are most commonly used in cooking, both in homes and restaurants. During the 11-year study, 1,134 people died and 606 had a heart disease-related event.

The results: There was absolutely no association between consuming foods fried in olive oil or sunflower oil and an increased risk of coronary heart disease or death, a finding that challenges the belief that fried food is generally bad for the heart.

But the key is to use olive oil or sunflower oil. When food is fried in other types of oils, especially solid or re-used oils as is typical in the American diet, it absorbs the fat of the oils. And that increases the calories of the food.

The study findings were published in the journal BMJ.

–From the Editors at Netscape

http://netscape.compuserve.com/whatsnew/package.jsp?name=fte/friedfood/friedfood&floc=wn-cx

 

Leave a Reply