Sunflower or olive oil? Which is better in the kitchen?

Bottles are scarce sunflower oil of supermarkets due to the war in Ukraine, one of the world’s largest producers of this product, and half the culinary world is panicking. What to do without it? Beyond gastronomic tastes and applications, at Cata Mayor we ask ourselves if it is better or worse than extra virgin olive oil or any other, and nobody better than Abel Mariné, Emeritus Professor of Nutrition and Bromatology at the UB Food Campus, to get us out of doubt.

“Comparisons are hateful because both are good. But sunflower oil is cheaper than extra virgin olive oil, which is better from a health point of view due to its proportion of fatty acids, antioxidants and other components that have beneficial effects for our health”, explains the expert. “Yes indeed, sunflower is also good for our body because it is rich in unsaturated”.

At this point, Mariné wants to refine his answer: “A distinction must be made regarding the sunflower oil. There is a high oleic variety which is not very common in stores but is above other vegetable oils and is close to olive oil in this sense”.

Soy, sesame, peanut…

There are alternative to both oilsrecalls the professor, as soybean, sesame, peanut… “But they come very marked by the original flavor and even being healthy due to their fatty acids and antioxidants, they have less quantity than olive oil”. And at a gastronomic level they are not so successful in these latitudes.

Now that we know which of the oils is healthier (being all of them but without being at the same level), it’s time to know what are they better for in the kitchenespecially with the two most popular, sunflower and olive. “We can use the sunflower one for whatever we want, but it has less flavorso if you are going to dress a salad you should take it into account, for example. Olive oil, as long as it is extra virgin, being less refined than those made from seeds, has more power in the mouth”. For this reason, many cooks usually fry the potatoes with sunflower oil instead of olive oil, since this leaves a more marked mark on the tuber… and on the palate.

Related news

Precisely frying is another point to analyze when comparing one oil with another. Is it better to fry with olive oil or sunflower oil? Marine responds. “To fry some food, the oil is close to 200 degrees. And in this case, it it is better to use an extra virgin olive oilbecause by having so many antioxidants it is more stable at high temperatures, since by heating it so much you subject it to an oxidative process that deteriorates the vitamins and can cause a small toxicity that is not bad for your health unless you ingest a quantity huge & rdquor ;.

When an oil deteriorates during frying, for example, it becomes darker, takes on unusual flavors and aromas, becomes thicker and smokes, recalls Mariné, who emphasizes that, for frying, “that of high oleic sunflower is very close to that of extra virgin olive oil”, so it is also ideal for frying.