Cooking with oil instead of butter could help improve your heart - 21 News Now, More Local News for Youngstown, Ohio -

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Fat is essential to the human diet.

In fact, recommendations suggest people consume between 20% and 35% of their total caloric intake in fat each day, which means if you're on a 2,000 calorie a day diet you should be consuming between 44 grams and 78 grams.

"We would always recommend using the oils or even the spray for lowering the calories and the fat content versus using a saturated fat for cooking," said Cindy Heslop, Humility of Mary Health Partners Dietitian.

Heslop says saturated fats, like butter and lard, increase a person's risk for heart disease. Mono-saturated fats on the other hand have been shown to improve heart health.

"You want to be using the unsaturated vegetable oils, preferably the mono-unsaturated, which would be your olive, canola and peanut oils," said Heslop.

Knowing which oils are the healthiest is only half of it. Heslop says pairing the right oil with the right cooking method is the other half.

"When you're cooking with oils you want to consider the smoke points of oil because some oils at room temperature are healthy versus subjecting them to a high heat which makes them an unhealthy oil because it releases toxins," Heslop said.

Keeping that in mind, oils like peanut, safflower, extra virgin olive and canola are best suited for deep frying, baking and stir frying. Corn, sesame, coconut and flaxseed oils are best used for sautéing, sauces and salad dressings.