Solution to Oil Crisis. No, Not that Oil Crisis

Bloomberg:

Vegetable oil is key to cooking an infinite variety of food, whether fried chicken, roast vegetables, banana bread or popcorn. According to the US Department of Agriculture, about 20% of the American diet comes from the all-purpose oil.

But vegetable oils—including canola, corn, cottonseed, safflower, sunflower, rice bran and soy—are often created from barely edible, indigestible seeds, grains and legumes that our body can’t properly digest. Experts at the Cleveland Clinic agree that seed oils contain potentially harmful omega-6 fats. “We should avoid these at all costs,” says noted functional medicine doctor and author, Frank Lipman.

Now, oils made from better quality ingredients are moving into restaurant kitchens and high-end grocery stores.

The most notable new product comes from Zero Acre Farms in San Mateo, California. Co-founder Jeff Nobbs says that cooking oil “doesn’t need to be a problem.” In 2022 he introduced his neutral-tasting, eco-friendly product, made from sustainably farmed non-GMO sugar cane from southern Brazil. To make it, proprietary algae cultures are added to raw sugar cane: The algae eat the sugar, and fermentation naturally converts the sugar into oil. The process has caught the attention of investors: To date, Zero Acre Farms has raised more than $40 million from investors like Robert Downey Jr.’s FootPrint Coalition Ventures and Richard Branson’s Virgin Group Ltd.

Although vegetable oils’ bad rap comes in part from their elevated levels of unhealthy omega-6 fats—a cause of internal inflammation—Zero Acre Farms’ product contains less than 3% of them. Instead, it’s made up of 93% omega-9, heart-healthy, heat-stable monounsaturated fat, making it even higher in “good fat” than olive oil and avocado oil. It also has a carbon footprint that’s about 10 times lower than most vegetable oils and a smoke point of 485F. (By comparison, olive oil’s smoke point is around 400F; canola oil’s ranges from 375°F to 475°F.)

One of the leading chefs now using Zero Acre Farms oil is Kyle Connaughton of the three-Michelin-star kaiseki-style SingleThread Farms in Healdsburg, California. “Our tempura has never tasted better, or [been] more shatter-crisp,” says Connaughton, who now uses it instead of grapeseed and rice bran oils for almost all his cooking. He notes the superior flavor and the environmental and health benefits compared with other oils.

Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Tarrytown, New York, studied the oil for about a year. He deems Zero Acre Farms “fantastic” for plant-based options and calls out the oil’s “brilliant” neutral taste. Finding a good-for-you, good-for-the-planet oil that works over very high heat is a chef’s “equivalent of the holy grail,” he says.

Another proponent is New York’s Coqodaq, the white-hot fried chicken spot, where a menu section titled “Better Oil” shouts out its benefits. Chef Seung Kyu Kim now uses it to cook all the fried chicken options at the 190-seat Korean restaurant.