palm oil

In an age when grocery shelves are stocked with everything from toasted sesame oil to coconut oil, here's a relative unknown that you may have never heard of: dendê oil.

This oil, which has a distinctive orangey-red color and a thick, somewhat opaque consistency, is a recurring ingredient in the cuisines of Southeast Asia, West Africa, and Bahia, a northeastern region in Brazil. There, the very rich, nutty flavor of dendê oil, or azeite de dendê, as Brazilians call it, is used to flavor fritters, sauces, and stews.

The ingredient is derived from the fleshy fruit pulp of the dendê palm tree and shouldn't be confused with palm kernel oil, which is extracted from the fruit's pit. Although it's high in saturated fat, dendê is prized for its antioxidants and fatty acids, and maintains a long shelf life. Have you ever cooked with red palm oil?

Partially hydrogenated oil is a type of trans fat that has gotten a lot of flak, and rightfully so. This chemically altered fat is known to raise LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, lower HDL (good) cholesterol levels, and increase your chance of developing coronary heart disease. Many companies are replacing hydrogenated oil with palm oil, saying that's it's a healthier option.

On nutritional labels you might see this ingredient listed as palm-fruit oil, since it's extracted from the fruit of the oil palm tree. This is not to be confused with palm kernel oil, which comes from the palm seed found inside the fruit. Eighty-six percent of the fat in palm kernel oil is saturated (the unhealthy fat), and 50 percent of the fat from palm-fruit oil is saturated, so it's the better choice of the two, but is palm oil considered healthy? To find out read more

At the grocery store to pick up some soy nut butter for a batch of Soy Nut Butter Muddy Buddies I was planning on making, I saw a new kind made by Simple Food. Checking out the label I noticed an ingredient I've never heard of — organic palm stearin.

If you're curious to know whether it's healthy or not read more