Olive Oil vs Vegetable Oil: Which Is Less Inflammatory?

Olive oil is less inflammatory than vegetable oil, and it is not close: olive oil is anti-inflammatory and vegetable oil sits near the top of the inflammation scale. Both are the bottle you reach for to fry, to roast or to dress a salad, so this is one swap you can make without learning anything new in the kitchen.

Vegetable oil has two problems. The first is the label, which names no single oil, so the blend inside can be soybean, rapeseed, sunflower or corn, and it can change from batch to batch. The second is refining, which strips out nearly all of the plant compounds the seed came with and leaves fat with almost nothing protective attached. Most of this oil also reaches people as fried food, and fried food raises the inflammation markers a doctor measures in a blood test.

Extra virgin olive oil skips the refining step. It is pressed from a fruit and bottled as it comes, so its plant compounds stay in. One of them, oleocanthal, gives a good oil its peppery sting at the back of the throat, and it blocks some of the same enzymes as ibuprofen. In pooled trials, olive oil also improved insulin levels and how well the body handled blood sugar. When your vegetable oil runs out, replace it with extra virgin in a dark bottle, and store it in a cupboard rather than next to the hob, because heat and light break those compounds down.