Do Cooking Oils Present a Health Risk?

The Egyptians appear to be the first to cook food using palm oil as long ago as 3000 BCE (Before the Common Era). Records also show the Greeks were deep-frying food in olive oil as early as the fifth century BCE. The use of vegetable oils from plants and fat from animals for cooking soon spread to the rest of Europe and Asia. Despite this long history of use, the vegetable oils now most commonly employed for cooking did not gain widespread use until the first half of the twentieth century. The c…