Sunset this evening marked the beginning of the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. Now, I am not Jewish, but my academic understanding of Hanukkah is that it celebrates the miracle in which olive oil that should have only lasted for one night, kept the menorah in the Temple burning for eight nights, which was credited, at least in part, with the success of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE. My personal and practical understanding of Hanukkah from my close Jewish friends, however, is that it is essentially a celebration of all things oil related.
Now, I can get down with a celebration of oil, but this begs the question: what types of oil? Well, without going into too much science in this post, we can start by crossing all of the seed and vegetable oils off of the list of oils that we will celebrate here (e.g., soybean oil, corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, grapeseed, Crisco, margarine, etc.). If these are in your cupboard and you’re thinking, what?! - then we have to talk some science another time. But for now, seriously, get rid of these.
Traditionally, (Jewish and otherwise) olive oil has been prized and widely used for culinary and cosmetic applications. We’re not gonna argue with olive oil - it’s awesome, but we will caution against using it for lots of high heat cooking. We recommend that you buy good quality extra virgin olive oil and use it for dressing salads and vegetables - your taste buds will thank you.
For cooking, we recommend coconut oil, pastured butter (i.e., butter from grass-fed cows), and beef tallow or lard (again from pastured animals). Nut butters or oils (remember that peanuts are legumes and not nuts) are another possible source of good fats, but you have take care to keep them from spoiling (read: cold and dark storage).
So, for the next week give some thought to the oils that you are using. Celebrate the wonderful properties of good oils, which include nourishment (i.e., fuel), satiation, preservation/antimicrobial effects, moisturizing capabilities, and, just maybe, help in slaying your foes.