With so many cooking oils on the market – olive oil, vegetable oil, coconut oil and palm oil, just to name a few, it can be hard to know which one is best for the health of you and your family. It’s important to remember that oil is a fat, no matter what form it takes. The goal is to minimize the amount of fat while preparing your foods, but maximize the taste and health benefits.

When oil starts smoking, it can produce toxic fumes and harmful free radicals, so knowing the smoke point of your oils is important. Because each oil is different, the all have different smoke points. A good guideline to remember is that the more refined an oil is, the higher the smoke point will be.

Use the following chart to learn more about the fat content and smoke point of common cooking oils.
 
Oil Smoke Point Saturated Fat % Polyunsaturated Fat % Mono-saturated Fat % % Omega3
(Fish = 100)
% Omega6
Olive Oil High >400°F 15% 12% 78% 0-2% 3-20%
Almond Oil High >400°F 10% 19% 73% 0% 24%
Canola Oil High >450°F 7% 35% 58% 10% 20%
Peanut Oil High >450°F 18% 33% 9% 0% 0%
Rice bran Oil High >475°F 20% 33% 7% 0% 0%
Grape seed Oil High >400°F 9% 3% 14% 0% >75%
Safflower Oil High >450°F 9% 78% 13% 0% 75%
Sunflower Oil High >450°F 11% 69% 20% 0% 65%
Walnut Oil High >400°F 14% 67% 19% 10% 53%
Sesame Oil Med >350°F 15% 43% 42% 0% 42%
Soybean Oil Med >320°F 15% 61% 24% 7% 51%
Corn Oil Med >320°F 13% 59% 24% 5% 54%
Butter Med >320°F 66% 4% 30% 0-2% 0-2%
Margarine Med >300°F 20% 30% 50% 0% 0%
Coconut Oil Med >350°F 92% 2% 6% 0-2% 0-2%
Palm Oil Low 52% 10% 38% 5% 5%