Cooking oils?

Rebekah24

agreed with others on the sunflower oil & real butter

I currently use no oils, finding it fine without for cooking. No baking for me atm!!

thriftlady_2

Lard is your cheapest fat. It is natural and has 30% less saturated fat than butter. It is brilliant for baking and frying as it has a high smoke point.

Butter is excellent for flavour in baking. I never ever use margarine. Most marge contains transfats which are bad for you. Nutritionists agree that transfats are more dangerous than saturated fats. I buy British butter, the cheapest own brand I can find.

The oils I use are extra virgin olive oil and either sunflower oil or extra virgin rapeseed oil produced in this country (this is expensive though). I would prefer not to use sunflower oil as all those cheap refined oils have undergone a huge amount of processing but sometimes you need something bland.

I also save all meat fats -bacon, chicken, dripping from cooking and use in other dishes. I usually have some goose fat around too for roast potatoes. I do not subscribe to the view that animal fats is bad for you.

Primrose

I usually use a 50/50 mixture of lard and butter when making pastry, and either Flora or light olive oil for other forms drying etc.
AND NOTHING BUT GOOSE FAT FOR COOKING ROAST POTATOES. They are utterly divine when cooked in this.:T

PollyFlinders_3

Like thriftlady, I have recently started saving fat from joints/bacon/sausages/burgers and using it to fry other items. Roast potatoes are particularly nice when done in burger fat, and bacon fat makes a great base when frying onions for soup.

Since I started doing this my spending on other oils has plummeted. Am aware of not eating too much saturated fat, so am careful to use the minimum I can get away with.

I use Stork for all my baking - OH and kids can't tell the difference between that and butter so I save the money. And this is what my Gran used during the war.