It's horses for courses apropos of oils for me. "Ordinary" olive oil is a no-no for me as it's way too refined. I have two grades of extra-virgin in the house, a less expensive Sicilian one (from Tesco) for cooking (it's bullshit that you shouldn't cook with extra virgin olive oil) and a classier one, either Sicilian or Tuscan, for sprinkling on finished pasta dishes or a pizza, or for salad dressing. For hot frying it's groundnut oil - neutral flavour and a high smoke point. For frying eggs, omelettes and fish, unsalted butter. We have a lovely Cornish source. For roasties, if there isn't enough fat from the meat I might use goose fat or beef dripping. It's gotta be about the end-product for me.

Just a tad naive, Mrrzy, to open up a controversial diet topic and not expect thread drift, huh?

For losing weight it's a great idea to acquaint oneself with the calorie content of different foods and take it from there. It's a start. For suspected food intolerances or for treating diabetes, where a drastic alteration in diet is indicated, proper medical advice is needed. That can't be said too often. Twice in the last two posts now.