🌿 Are You Still Using Vegetable Oil? Here’s How to Choose the Healthiest Option

Vegetable oils are everywhere — from salad dressings and snack bars to your favorite “healthy” recipes. But not all oils are created equal, and many of the ones lining grocery store shelves can quietly sabotage your hormones, energy, and inflammation levels.

So, which oils are truly supportive for your health—and which ones belong in the trash?
Let’s break it down.

🧴 What Are Vegetable Oils?

“Vegetable oil” is a broad term for any oil extracted from a seed or fruit. Common types include:

  • Avocado

  • Coconut

  • Corn

  • Olive

  • Peanut

  • Rapeseed (canola)

  • Soybean

  • Safflower

  • Sunflower

But here’s where things get tricky — the way these oils are extracted makes all the difference between nourishing your body or inflaming it.

⚙️ How Oils Are Made (and Why It Matters)

The quality of an oil depends on two key factors:

  1. The purity of the source (organic, non-GMO, etc.)

  2. The method of extraction and processing

All oils start the same way — the seed or fruit is cracked, crushed, or ground. From there, it can go in two very different directions: gently extracted or chemically processed.

✅ The Healthiest Extraction Methods

Cold-Pressed Oils
These are your gold standard. Cold-pressing uses slow, gentle pressure (either traditional stone grinding or a hydraulic press) to extract oil without heat or chemicals. This preserves delicate nutrients, antioxidants, and fatty acids.

Expeller-Pressed Oils
These are a solid second choice. While they use slightly higher temperatures, the process is still mechanical—no chemical solvents involved—so the oil retains much of its integrity.

🚫 The Oils to Avoid

Chemically refined oils are heated to extremely high temperatures and extracted using solvents like hexane (yes, the same chemical used in glue and leather cleaner). After that, they’re bleached, deodorized, and sometimes hydrogenated to improve shelf life.

By the end of this process, what’s left is a rancid, damaged fat that drives oxidative stress, inflammation, and hormonal disruption.

Common offenders include:

  • Canola (genetically modified rapeseed)

  • Corn

  • Soybean

  • Safflower

  • Sunflower (unless cold-pressed)

  • “Vegetable oil” blends (often an unknown mix of the above)

🛒 Your Clean-Oil Shopping Cheat Sheet

LOOK FOR:

  • Cold-pressed or expeller-pressed

  • Organic

  • Unrefined

  • Unfiltered

  • “Virgin” or “Extra Virgin”

AVOID:

  • “Refined,” “hydrogenated,” or “partially hydrogenated”

  • “Vegetable oil blend” (vague = low quality)

  • “High-heat processed” or “neutral taste” (usually chemically refined)

🥑 The Best Oils to Use

Stick to high-quality, unrefined oils from whole-food sources. My top picks:

  • Extra virgin olive oil (great for salads and light cooking)

  • Avocado oil (great for medium-heat cooking)

  • Coconut oil (ideal for baking or higher-heat cooking)

  • Red palm oil (rich in antioxidants, but source sustainably)

Note: Even some of these “healthy” oils are refined on the market, so always check the label!

Once you’ve stocked up on clean oils, store them properly:

  • Keep olive oil in a dark cupboard

  • Store others in the refrigerator to prevent oxidation

💡 The Bottom Line

The oils you cook with every day directly impact your hormones, inflammation, and energy. If you’re dealing with fatigue, sluggish metabolism, or hormone imbalance, switching to clean, unprocessed oils is one of the simplest (but most powerful) changes you can make.

🔥 Ready to Take It Deeper?

If you’ve already cleaned up your diet but still feel off — tired, bloated, or hormonally imbalanced — it’s time to look deeper at what’s going on in your metabolism, minerals, and digestion.

That’s exactly what I help women uncover inside my 1:1 Functional Nutritional Therapy Program.
👉 Click here to book your free discovery call and get a personalized roadmap to restore your energy and metabolism from the inside out.

In Your Corner,

Karri

Karri Ball