5 Reasons Why I Switched From Sunflower to Olive Oil Almost Entirely
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I barely use sunflower oil anymore. And today I want to show you a few reasons why I decided to start using olive oil instead of sunflower oil for almost all the meals.
I’ll also tell you for what purposes I still use sunflower oil later in the post, so make sure to stick till the end.
Reasons Why I Switched To Olive Oil From Sunflower Oil
1. Olive Oil Is Healthier
I won’t concentrate too much on health benefits of olive oil since I’m not a doctor, but I think that we all know that olive oil is probably 10x healthier when compared to sunflower oil.
That’s what thousands of doctors agree on, and if you don’t believe, here are two posts that I recommend you checking out:
Olive oil is recommended by so many nutritionists as well, while the same doesn’t apply to sunflower oils.
2. My Food Tastes Much Better
While it took me some time to adjust to olive oil taste, now I finally can feel all those beautiful smells and tastes that olive oil provides to food.
I’m cooking eggs in olive oil, saute onion and other vegetables, dripping salads, baking all kinds of fish and meat, cooking pommes fritters in the oven, and many more things. I even switched to olive oil when cooking bread and bread rolls.
I increased the overall olive oil consumption in my household probably by 200%. Now we use approximately 2 liters of olive oil per month.
3. Sunflower Oil Doesn’t Actually Have a Taste
When you taste most sunflower oils (except the cold-pressed ones), they don’t actually have any taste. So why would I use something that doesn’t improve the taste of the food in any way and is dangerous for my health?
Olive oil adds additional flower, and that flower is actually fantastic.
4. I Like To Buy From Small Producers
Being a kind of entrepreneur myself, I like to buy from small producers to encourage them to work harder and improve their small businesses.
But it’s not only that, small producers of olive oil very often:
- organically grow their trees
- have higher-quality of olive oil
- have better rewards at various olive oil competitions
I’ve never seen some small producers and businesses selling sunflower oils.
5. I Live at Mediterranean
Since I live at Mediterranean (Dubrovnik – Croatia), olive oil is a part of culture and tradition here, and that’s also one of the reasons why I tend to consume it more, and why I reduced the consumption of sunflower oils a lot.
I also have a few olive trees so I even produce a little bit of olive oil for my family needs, which is almost entirely enough for a whole year. But of course, I always give out some oil to my relatives, so sometimes buying additional bottles from smaller businesses is required.
Related: Best Olive Oils From Croatia
I Still Use Sunflower Oil For a Few Specific Foods
While the majority of oil consumption inside my household is now the olive oil, there are still some things that we use sunflower oil for.
Here are a few of them:
- Cooking pommes frites in the pan. Olive oil can’t compare to sunflower oil for making fried things in the pan.
- Cooking anything breaded in corn flakes, or bread crumbs.
- Popcorns. While we mainly buy microwave popcorn, sometimes we like making homemade popcorn, and sunflower oil is better.
- Pancakes. Since sunflower doesn’t provide the food with any extra taste, it’s great for pancakes (I’m sure olive oil would negatively affect the taste of pancakes).
And that’s all I can think of. A you can see, it’s not much.
Yes, I know that the cost of olive oil is high, especially when compared to sunflower oil. But for me, the health benefits of olive oil and all other reasons are more important than a few bucks less in the budget per month.