When you cook with olive oil for a long time, it makes more bad stuff than coconut oil or ghee.

Scientific Claim

When subjected to prolonged heating, extra virgin olive oil generates significantly higher levels of polar compounds and lipid oxidation byproducts than coconut oil and ghee.

Original Statement

“A 2018 study published in Acta Scientific Nutritional Health tested the performance of various cooking oils under heat. What they found was that extra virgin olive oil, whilst more stable than seed oils, still produce significantly more polar compounds and oxidization byproducts than coconut oil and animal fats like ghee when heated for extended periods.”

From video:NEVER Cook Meat In These 5 TOXIC Fats!byMax German

Context Details

Domain

food-chemistry

Population

in_vitro

Subject

extra virgin olive oil under prolonged heating

Action

generates

Target

significantly higher levels of polar compounds and lipid oxidation byproducts than coconut oil and ghee

Intervention Details

Type: cooking-method

Dosage: prolonged heating

Duration: extended thermal exposure

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

Effect of Heating Temperature of High-Quality Arbequina, Picual, Manzanilla and Cornicabra Olive Oils on Changes in Nutritional Indices of Lipid, Tocopherol Content and Triacylglycerol Polymerization Process

Cross-Sectional Study

In Vitro

2023 May 22

This study shows that when you heat extra virgin olive oil really hot, it breaks down and forms more unhealthy byproducts than when heated gently—suggesting it’s not as stable as coconut oil or ghee under high heat.

Contradicting (1)

How Different Lipid Blends Affect the Quality and Sensory Attributes of Short Dough Biscuits

Cross-Sectional Study

In Vitro

The study looked at how different fats affect cookies, not how they break down when heated for a long time, so we can't tell if olive oil makes more harmful compounds than coconut oil or ghee when cooked.

Similar Assertions

Heating olive oil really hot makes it get gunkier — about 4.5 times more than at a lower heat — but even at the highest temperature, it doesn’t get gunky enough to be considered unsafe by food safety standards.

81%

When olive oil gets super hot, it starts forming gummy, big molecules called dimers — and the amount depends on the type of olive oil: blends with more Arbequina make way more than those with more Picual.

73%

When you cook olive oil at very high heat, the good unsaturated fats break down faster than the saturated ones — especially in oils that started with more unsaturated fats, making them less healthy for cooking.

71%