Cooking At High Heat With Unsaturated Fats Was Never Such A Good Idea.

These fats do more than just smoke.

Many people have bought into the idea that the consumption of unsaturated fats are healthier than the consumption of saturated fats, and that has also been popularised and propagated by major health experts such as those at the Mayo Clinic.

We do know, however, that unsaturated fats have a lower tolerance to heat than saturated fats — this is evidenced by the smoke point, or the temperature at which a fat starts to exhibit the release of smoke.

Now definitely, we don’t want to to be cooking oils at such high temperatures that they actually start to smoke — this could present a safety hazard if left uncontrolled.

But what we do know is that when a fat being subjected to heat does start to emanate smoke, some chemical reaction is going on inside.

What we do know is that the carbon-carbon (C=C) double bonds found in these unsaturated fats are more reactive than the carbon-carbon single bonds. These C=C double bonds are rich in electron density and will very readily undergo electrophilic addition reactions.

The oxygen molecules that we find in the atmosphere are, unfortunately, strong electrophiles. They are drawn to the C=C double bonds.

When sufficient heat is added to an unsaturated fat, as it is in the case of using it to cook foods at high temperatures, the fat will start to emanate smoke, which is a symptom of a chemical reaction occurring in the fat.

As oxygen reacts with the fat, we can see the development of a few reaction pathways, much like how the hydrogenation of unsaturated fats in an industrial process at high temperatures can also kick off those reaction pathways:

It’s all about the oxygen molecules finding their way to the C=C double bonds, because of all the lipid peroxidation that will take place thereafter.

There would be a chain reaction that releases even more reactive chemicals.

a. Which in the end can help to speed up the rate of DNA mutations and potentially lead into cancer: