The Slick Truth About Oil

9 Oils Reviewed for Your Health

Fats can be our friend or enemy. The oil you choose is as essential as the foods you eat and exercise choices you make.

Fats are incredibly natural and healthy when you get a quality product. They are a big part in our program, especially since many of the quality oils contain high amounts of heart-healthy fatty acids that are difficult to get from everyday food.

Many of these oils you can buy and use as part of your cooking. Others are better as supplementation or flavor additives. We recommend talking to one of our counselors is to see which fats would work best for you, and how to incorporate them into a healthy diet. Sign up for a free consult here.

Heart Healthy Oils

The heart goes through a lot of fatty acids to maintain vigor and activity. Providing your body with the right amount of fats, especially in the form of oils, really helps.

Olive Oil
Olive oil has a high amount of long chain fatty acids, especially monounsaturated fats. It’s perfect for drizzling over your food at the end of the cooking process and for dipping bread and vegetables. In fact, in Italy and the rest of the Mediterranean, dipping vegetables in olive oil and vinegar for flavor is a common practice.

You don’t want to cook with olive oil, however. It has a low smoke point, which means it will burn before it cooks. After you reach 325 degrees, olive oil breaks down and loses much of its nutritional value.

Coconut Oil
Coconut oil is also extremely heart healthy, despite having the highest amount of saturated fat in the plant world. These fats are medium chain triglycerides. These are known to help reduce cholesterol levels and improve health.

It's beneficial for baking, where are you can help make baked goods creamy without a heavy buttery flavor. It's also great for sautéing and roasting; you just need to be aware it has a moderately high smoke point and loses its nutritional value at high temperatures.

Peanut Oil
Peanut oil is fantastic for frying and stir-fries. It’s very neutral in terms of health benefits and taste, but if you need a high heat oil, peanut oil the one for you. Just don’t use it if you are allergic to peanuts

Flaxseed Oil
Flaxseeds are a great addition to foods, but you don't want to cook with them. Flaxseed oil breaks down very quickly in the presence of heat, so you want to use the flax seeds and their oils as part of cool dishes. For example, you can grind up the flax seeds and mix them into hummus, dressings, and yogurt to get the oil straight from the source.

Oils for Memory, Brain Fog, and Fatigue

Avocado Oil
Avocado oil is another emerging oil that has many health benefits. It is a bit more expensive, but it also has a high smoke point. It’s perfect for sautéing and frying and helps enhance other flavors. It doesn’t have as much saturated fat but has a lot of heart-healthy monounsaturated fats.

It helps the absorption of vitamins E and A, vitamins many women are deficient. Vitamin E in the brain is especially crucial for preserving memories.

Olive Oil
You want olive oil for your brain to help balance the serotonin and dopamine hormones in your brain, as well as ghrelin and leptin, which cause hunger. Extra virgin olive oil contains polyphenols that are now linked to reversing Alzheimer’s disease.

Flaxseed Oil
The omega-3 fatty acids in flaxseed oil help protect the brain and can give you energy throughout the day. Flaxseed’s ability to reduce inflammation works well to preserve brain function and reduce the chance of stroke.

Natural Oils for Healthy Skin

Grapeseed Oil
Grapeseed oil is high in polyphenols, which can help reduce inflammation. Grapeseed oil is excellent to add to salads and vegetables to ingest the healthy nutrients and get a full body effect. It’s incorporated into many cosmetics because of the soothing effects.

Coconut Oil
You can rub coconut oil directly on your skin, or eat it to get the benefits. The high saturated fats in coconut oil help increase the elasticity of the skin and preserve the collagen content.

Almond Oil
Almond oil is great to drizzle on your salad because it contains a high amount of omega-3s. But it’s also a super soothing body moisturizer. Because almond oil is hypoallergenic, it can help lubricant at your skin and provide a protective coat.

Olive Oil
Directly on the scalp, olive oil can help moisturize the skin and help reduce dandruff. After doing a 20-minute soak of olive oil in your hair, rinse as usual.

Pomegranate Seed Oil
New to the market, pomegranate seed oil has an incredibly high antioxidant count, which is beneficial to the whole body. It’s touted as especially effective at fighting off wrinkles and signs of aging.

Oil Pulling for Healthy Teeth

Sesame Oil
Sesame oil has another high smoke point and can add a lot of great flavor to foods. With its ability to destroy some bacterial and viral infections, it can help your immune system and fight cavities. It also helps increase core body temperature, which can improve circulation and blood flow to the extremities.

Sesame oil is traditionally used in India for cleaning teeth and the primary oil for oil pulling.

Olive Oil
If sesame oil is too strong, olive oil is a great substitute. It doesn’t work as well, but it will still help clean your teeth.

Digestion and Oils

All of the oils we have listed above are beneficial to your digestive system. They help stimulate the flow of biles within the intestine, which can help nutrient absorption, and support the friendly probiotics in your gut.

Even if you had your gallbladder removed, try introducing the various oils slowly. Being the more beneficial kinds, your body treats them differently, and you may just find your health improves by eating more fat.