The oil’s smoke point or the cooking oil’s smoke point is something you need to know. Why is it important to know the cooking oil’s smoke point? Because if you do not know your oil’s smoke point, you can end up cooking your food in a very unhealthy oil.

When you pass the oil’s smoke point, the heat basically destroys the oil’s molecular structure, and turns otherwise healthy oil into a poison. Some oils have a higher smoke point than others, but it is important to remember that all oils have a smoke point. For the oil’s smoke point chart, click here.

As you can see, the avocado oil has the highest smoke point; the lowest smoke point goes to the flaxseed oil. Personally, I think it is a bad idea to heat any oil that contains omega 3s, even if I could precisely measure its smoke point, I would not do it.

As a general rule, here is what I do: Since I am lazy and do not want to check the chart for the oil’s smoke point every time I need to cook something, I only use canola, avocado or macadamia nut oils for cooking, and I never use the highest heat setting on my stove.  This way, I can be reasonably sure that I do exceed my oil’s smoke point without actually measuring how hot my cooking pan really is.

The bottom line on the cooking oil’s smoke point Just in case I run out of my favorite cooking oils and need to use some other oil for cooking, I always keep the chart handy. In addition, and I do not know how this myth got started, but I have heard numerous times that the coconut oil is the best cooking oil because it has a high smoke point. As you can see from the chart, it is not the case. [source: Taste for Life]