When I was in college and moved off campus to live in a house with some of my friends, my first real foray into attempting to prepare full meals for myself began.

Let's be honest here, these meals weren't cooked every day, and sometimes my friend Leila and I would even resort to melting pieces of American cheese on top of pepperonis in the microwave and calling them "appetizers". No big deal. "Appetizers" were a huge hit in our house. #college

Luckily, my cooking and eating habits have taken a turn for the better as I've gotten older - but I digress.

Back then, whenever I was cooking actual, edible food for myself my default cooking oil was extra virgin olive oil 100% of the time. I felt pretty confident that EVOO was super good for me, and would use it with abandon no matter how hot the oven or stove was when I was cooking.

And then I learned about a little thing called a smoke point, i.e. the temperature at which an oil's chemical composition is damaged and broken down, causing free radicals to be generated, and that was a rude awakening.

Free radicals are jerks - and you want to avoid them at all costs. In quasi-science-y speak, they're atoms that have an odd number of electrons, and that extra electron harasses your cells and DNA causing them to function improperly and sometimes die. This terrible process is called oxidation and can lead to all sorts of different diseases - cancer included. Totally hostile and uncalled for.

Natural oils/fats are comprised of triglycerides - essentially, varying amounts of three different kinds of fats. The primary type of fat in each oil determines it's best cooking methods: saturated - stable under high heat, monounsaturated - stable under low heat, polyunsaturated - not stable under heat. Polyunsaturated fats are really best suited for things that don't require direct heat, like dressings.

My absolute favorite fat to cook with? GHEE! I'm going to write an entire post dedicated to my love for ghee, but in short it's clarified butter (milk solids are removed), it tastes DELISH, and it has a really high smoke point. If you haven't tried it yet - get your paws on a (grass-fed) jar ASAP.

When you're shopping for oils that are extracted from a seed/nut/plant (olive, avocado, macadamia, etc.) it's important to make sure that they're organic and cold pressed (or expeller pressed without heat) to ensure you're getting the best quality and most health benefits possible. Oils that aren't extracted this way are typically run through the ringer via industrial processes - in which many are exposed to high heats that damage the oils, and treated with chemicals like hexane and bleach throughout their "refinement" - GROSS!

There are some cooking oils that you should avoid at all costs due to their insane level of processing and their likelihood of being genetically modified, so instead of including them with their smoke points in my handy little chart below I'm going to just list them out here so you know what to avoid next time you're food shopping:

Cooking Oil No Bueno List:

Soybean Oil
Corn Oil
Canola Oil
Cottonseed Oil
Vegetable Oil

Now, in the guide below I didn't go crazy and list every cooking oil available - that would be overwhelming and unhelpful. Only the most health-friendly oils for you (some may surprise you). Happy cooking, beauties!

Cooking Oil Smoke Point Guide:

Cooking Oils 101