Errata olive oil

An anonymous poster wrote this in the comment section of my previous post: "don't cook with olive oil"

"This is an article from the Guardian. A correction gas been posted:

Are we using too much olive oil?


Zoe Williams
Wednesday July 25, 2007
The Guardian


The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Wednesday August 8 2007

The article below mistakenly stated that almost any cooking of olive oil beyond the gentlest of sweating would transform it into trans fats. Most trans fats in food are the result of an industrial hydrogenation process. Frying in oils such as sunflower or olive oil has an insignificant effect in producing trans fats

or read it for yourself here:

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,2134134,00.html

Olive Oil is fine to cook with!" (thanks anonymous)

I'm happy to hear that. i did a bit of research on the side and i did not find other references to the transformation into trans-fat. but the fact remains that olive oil has a lower smoking point than most oil and that many oils denature at smoking point. Transfats may not, luckily be the by product, but a lot of the aroma is lost and i find that olive oil changes into heavy tasting fat. but then again this is a matter of taste. Today I had a foodie friend taste the manoucheh as I make it: make the patterns on the dough to avoid the bread splitting, cook the dough as you would a manoucheh but without adding the zaatar oil mix, then when almost cooked, remove, add the mix and place back for 30 seconds-1 minute. He thought this was the best he had ever had. And you can use olive oil without losing its aroma. Problem is that it's a bit labor intensive and not many ovens would agree to do it. This was in the oven of my village, so there was no problem.