What Cooking Oils Are Sustainable?

When looking to make eco-friendly switches in our daily lives, it’s not always as easy as just buying organic produce or using a paper bag instead of plastic. There are a lot of factors that go into determining which product is more Earth-friendly, and sometimes there just isn’t a solid answer on what is best. 

Take soap, for example. Soap leaves a trail of harmful effects behind in both its manufacturing and usage portions of its life cycle, but there’s not one type of soap that’s exceptionally better in every way than any other. In most cases, different types of soap have different effects on the environment and in different ways, so it’s hard to make an absolute statement on what option is better and what isn’t.

(If you’re looking for more information on that, by the way, you can check out our whole article on making your soap sustainable! )

Talking about oil in the sustainability sense works in the same way. Different types of oil have different effects on the environment and on your body, so choosing which one to use largely depends on what you’re using the oil for and what your own personal priorities are. 

How are cooking oils made?

Cooking oils are made from seeds or nuts that have been ground to a pulp and pressed. The best and most nutritional oils are cold-pressed, as heat can alter the chemical makeup of the oil and turn it darker. 

This obviously means that a significant amount of land is used to grow the plants/trees that produce the seeds and nuts necessary for making palm oil. Some oil requires more land, some require more water and some require more pesticides. They are all so different in their production processes, making it tricky to determine which oil is the best to pick.

Sustainability of cooking oils

Olive oil

Sustainable: Sort of. Buy extra virgin & organic

Ethical: Buy fair trade

Olive oil is a common ingredient in many a recipe, so it’s a good thing that it’s a fairly sustainable kind of oil to start with!

Olive oil goes well with everything from salad dressings to sauces to pasta flavorings. It’s also one of the healthier oils to use, as it contains the less harmful monounsaturated fat, rather than polyunsaturated fat or saturated fat. Extra virgin olive oil is the least processed and least refined, too, making it the healthiest of the lot.

From a sustainability standpoint, the massive popularity of olive oil means that a significant amount of land and resources goes toward producing this popular oil. And where there’s high demand, there’s usually high cost.

The best way to purchase olive oil sustainably is to make sure that it’s organic and fair trade. That way, you know you’re getting the most ethical and sustainable varieties of the oil.

Vegetable oil

Sustainable: Not really

Ethical: Hard to tell

The sustainability of vegetable oil is hard to pin down because it’s actually a blend of oils from different vegetables and beans. All these vegetables require massive amounts of land and water to grow, as does the manufacturing process. It’s for this reason that it’s pretty much impossible to find a sustainable, fair trade or organic version of vegetable oil, so it’s best to just avoid this mish-mash altogether. 

Canola/rapeseed oil

Sustainable: Not really

Ethical: Buy cold-pressed & organic only

Canola oil is made from a type of rapeseed, most of which is grown in Canada. For the most part, canola oil isn’t more harmful to the environment than other similar oils, but there is a dark side to some types of canola. Cold-pressed canola oil (i.e. pressed without heat) is not too bad for the environment, but refined oil (which is heated) uses a chemical called hexane that is toxic to the workers who manufacture the oil.

Although the cold-pressed version is perfectly fine for humans, making the oil still requires plenty of land and water, so it’s hard to call it an eco-friendly oil. 

Palm oil

Sustainable: No

Ethical: Nope

It’s next to impossible to avoid palm oil nowadays because it’s in nearly every kind of food out there, but it should absolutely be avoided if possible.

The palm oil industry is one of the leading causes of deforestation in the world today, with over 300 football fields’ worth of rainforest cleared each hour to make way for the palm oil industry. 

Sunflower oil

Sustainable: Buy organic only

Ethical: Hard to say

Sunflowers require a massive amount of water to grow to the point of seed harvesting, and processing the seeds also uses up a fair portion of energy, as do most oils. If you do use sunflower oil, buy the organic variety to avoid pesticides.

Coconut oil

Sustainable: No

Ethical: Not really

Coconuts don't require pesticides to grow, which is a big selling point for the sustainability arguments in favor of coconut oil. However, growing the trees for coconut oil requires a very specific tropical climate and location, meaning that natural tropical environments are being demolished to make way for coconut palms. 

Coconuts are harvested by hand rather than by machinery, which slightly offsets the environmental footprint that heavy machinery sets on agricultural industries. It’s a double-edged sword, though, because the high demand means that farmers are sometimes mistreated or overworked to ensure the harvest is swift and effective. 

Avocado oil

Sustainable: Not really

Ethical: Not really

Although we love to love avocados, the reality is that with high demand comes high cost, and that cost is spread among the communities that harvest the crop to the environment in which it grows. 

Here are a few issues with avocados:

• Water usage: avocados need huge amounts of water to grow
• Temperamental crop: avocados can turn on a dime if there is frost, ruining entire crops and contributing to food waste.
• Grown for export: most avocados are grown out of the United States, which not only contributes to transportation pollution but also places a heavy burden on local communities.
• High demand: farmers are under massive pressure to meet the demands of the avocado industry, and are often mistreated by local gangs who prey upon small communities.

Bottom line, avocados are not sustainable and can seriously impact the small communities that grow them. If you do use avocado oil, make sure that it’s organic, fair-trade or locally-grown. 

The verdict

It’s hard to pin down which cooking oil is the best to use because all of them are different in different ways. All of them take a large toll on the land and the ecosystem, but maybe some are certainly worse than others. 

Look for oils that are: 

• Organic
• Fair trade
• Cold-pressed (unrefined)

Palm oil is the most destructive of the cooking oils, so avoid that at all costs; even if it’s labeled organic and fair trade, it’s just not worth it. Extra virgin olive oil that’s organic and fair trade seems to be the best choice, and it’s fairly good for you, too. 

Hope this helps!

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Featured photo courtesy Pixabay/JillWellington