Adam Ragusea
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 7 months, 2021–2024
10:51 · 1.9M views · Apr 27, 2020
Adam Ragusea examines whether olive oil is unsafe for high-heat cooking and whether it tastes bad when heated. He cites studies showing it is among the most stable cooking oils and that smoke-point worries are overblown.
HN points to it to debunk the stubborn olive-oil-at-high-heat myth, valued for its cited sources and food scientist interviews.
9 comments from Hacker News
The majority of chefs from countries bordering the Mediterranean would laugh at your claim that extra virgin olive oil is not suitable for frying. Obviously you shouldn't go using your fancy $100 bottle for deep frying, but mostly because it would be a waste of money, and because frying dulls the flavor. You want to save the really flavorful and expensive oils for salads and as a finishing touch. I've been pan frying eggs, onions, pork chops, chicken, potatoes, fish, basically anything interchangeably in extra virgin olive oil and butter/ghee for decades. There is certainly a flavor difference, but that's because the olive oil is much milder in flavor than butter, and the process of frying dulls the flavor of the olive oil, as mentioned. I - along with millions of people in countries bordering the Mediterranean - enjoy the flavor of food cooked in olive oil. Adam Ragusea did a great video on the topic, with cited sources. I highly recommend watching it: this video Sources: [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] Including this famous chef using it for deep frying: [LINK] Additional sources: [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] The bottom line is that extra virgin olive oil is more heat stable than other cooking oils with higher smoke points. Just don't use it to sear steaks or something. So much of the conventional wisdom around cooking is not based on scientific fact, but rather on unsubstantiated observations and gut feelings. The viability of extra virgin olive oil for cooking is one of those pieces of
That's a very common misconception and a stubborn myth: this video I fry mushrooms (and many other things) in olive oil all the time. It works great, tastes great and as long as you use extra virgin oil, doesn't create any more harmful substances than using rapeseed or sunflower seed oil, probably a lot fewer actually. You can even deep fry in it, which some celebrated chefs do.
Adam Ragusea does a lot of well researched videos around food science, and did one around using olive oil, even past the smoke point, fairly recently - this video Some good interviews with food scientists, etc. Interesting for anyone wanting to learn a bit more on this subject. I've swapped to using EVOO for most anything where it won't be too overpowering of a taste.
That's not the whole story though. Often, what is more important is how stable the oil is below the smoke point. There's a pretty decent video on this by Adam Ragusea: this video
The olive oil bit is a myth - see: this video Olive oil is actually one of the chemically safest oils to heat.