How we rate cooking oils and fats

To provide you with honest and helpful information on the cooking oils and fats we recommend, we developed an evaluation criteria to guide our suggestions, and ultimately provide preppers with relevant help for their specific needs. When it comes to cooking oils and fats, our evaluation is measured based on five categories: Health Benefits (30%), Shelf Life (30%), Versatility (15%), Cooking (15%), and Source of Ingredients (10%). We will go into more details below.

Evaluation Criteria

1. Health Benefits (30%)

   Cooking oils and fats are foundational ingredients in many of the foods we eat. So, we need to ensure we are putting the healthiest, least processed, and most energizing food products into our bodies. You will notice in our articles, that we intentionally leave out heavily processed cooking oils that are often made with genetically modified ingredients. When we evaluate products on their health benefits, we consider the ingredients, the refining process, and recent studies relating to the health benefits and consequences of fats and oils. Our understanding of fats and oils has changed over the past few decades, but we now know that natural and the least processed cooking oils and fats are the healthiest. So for this reason, we weigh the health benefits of cooking oils and fats as an important factor in our evaluation criteria. Additionally, in a crisis, we want to be healthy and energized, so consuming the healthiest foods will help with our emergency preparedness plan.

2. Shelf Life (30%)

   In preparation for a SHTF scenario, preppers should have preemptively stocked up on essential foods for their pantry. Since we do not know how long a SHTF scenario will last, we should have extra foods with a long shelf life. When making our evaluation criteria, we had this in mind and wanted to include the cooking oils and fats with the longest shelf life. For a prepper, expiration dates and shelf life should be on the top of their mind when choosing a product to include in their pantry. Given its importance, we assign a heavy weight to our overall evaluation.

3. Versatility (15%)

   When it comes to surviving a SHTF scenario, we need to be resourceful and crafty. A prepper should be aware of the multipurpose uses of their products. We are really opinionated on our choices of cooking oil and fats because they are one of the most useful tools for a serious crisis. Outside of cooking, fats can be used to treat wounds, as a moisturizer, and as a lip balm. Oils, on the other hand, can be used to make candles, lubricate metal pieces, and as a cleaning product. Knowing that we may need to be using our food products for more than just cooking in a serious crisis, we added versatility as an evaluation consideration.

4. Cooking (15%)

   When it comes to eating, being able to enjoy your food is just as important as being able to cook your food. People across cultures and history, find comfort and enjoyment in food regardless of the events going on around them. When it comes to making enjoyable food, the types of cooking oils and fats used have an effect on the flavor of the food. The enjoyableness of food is definitely subjective but we made our evaluation on how useful the cooking oil is in multiple types of dishes. Coconut oil is a very versatile cooking oil that can be used to make anything from rice to pancakes because of its sweeter flavor. In contrast, lard creates a unique texture that is great for baking pie crusts. When we evaluated cooking oils and fats we considered their usefulness in the kitchen and your ability to make savory foods in a SHTF scenario.

5. Source of Ingredients (10%)

   Often overlooked is the source of ingredients. Companies who sell cooking oils and fats may sometimes combine ingredients from multiple sources to dilute low-quality ingredients. This is money saving tactic for companies to make an extra buck. So when we evaluate cooking oils, we consider the source of ingredients. Ideally, the cooking oils and fats are sourced from a single location, but you may find multiple locations listed on the bottle. This indicates the product has likely been diluted with lower quality ingredients. Although we may recommend cooking oils and fats sourced from multiple locations, this is something we are mindful of and only recommend products we have used or support.

Conclusion