COOKING OIL... do you re-use it? how many times?

At home, we usually do quite a lot of frying when cooking. For health reasons, we try not to use the oil more than twice, that is reusing it only once after it is used the first time. If you cook at high temperatures, oil burns and can make carcinogens so it is best not to reuse too many times. The better oil I am told is olive oil because it doesn't burn that easily and your body doesn't store it in your arteries and veins. But olive oil is expensive compared to other types of cooking oils. I've never heard of used cooking oils being turned into laundry soap. But I'm not surprised because through modern recycling methods, things can be chemically treated to transform them into other products, just like treating polluted sea water into drinkable water through reverse osmosis.

I hardly ever fry anything, so if I do I do not reuse it.

Yes I do re-use them specially when it is not so dark I reused it twice or trice. Like yours when I fried fish I used it for fish also for the other day but when I fried it to pork or meat I sometimes used it to fish also. I used vegetable oil or sometimes olive oil that's why for me it is safe to re used again. This is the first time I heard that oil can used into laundry soap.

nope i do not re-use cooking oil. simply because i seldom deep fry so i seldom use large quantities of oil in the first place. i have never had someone knock on my door asking for used oil! that would be interesting. i always knew that oil was used in soap production but i didn't know that they used old cooking oil for that!

I re-use as much as possible. I hate to always pour oil down the sink, besides the gunky build-up, that may cause clogging it can pollute our environment.

Nope I have never reused oil. I have always thrown it away. We don't have anyone that comes around to collect the oil either.

hi noriko! ^__^ we also reuse cooking oil. but only up to 2 to 3 uses. if we fry fish, we would reuse the oil even if we would fry chicken. ^__^;; i think there's no problem in that only the chicken would somehow taste a little bit like fish. LOL but the usual thing we do is reuse the cooking oil to fry rice. ^__^ fried rice with a little flavor is really delicious especially during mornings than fried rice fried in a new and plain cooking oil. and then we would add some garlic and onions to make it more spicy. ^__^ i don't have any idea if there are people in our area who recycle cooking oil and turn them into laundry soap. but i think it would be great if there are more people doing that. its good to recycle things. ^__^

i dont cook, its my wife who does the cooking. but i know she reuse cooking oil but just when use for chicken and vegs not reusing oil for fish

if i fry dried fish, i will not re-use that oil anymore unless if i also fry the same dried fish...

Yes, I will re-use it. Usually I will use it to fry the vegetable or any dishes. And sometimes I will use it on the noodles after we make it.

I only re-use bacon grease if it is going to be the same day.I heard something though about potatoes purifying oil, so it is safe to re-use if you have fried potatoes, not sure how true that is.That is pretty neat about turning used oil into soap, but haven't ever heard of people actually going door to door collecting it either :)

Hi, We rarely reuse the oil and that too used during frying is fish. We hardly recycled it for any further purposes. Still I hope reusing it beyond an extend might not be good and using it to a limit might be more useful. Any how I hope it might not effect the taste of dish made out of it.

I bake potatoes in cooking oil, and when it's been used a couple of tlmes they get a better colour and come out crisper.

I never ever re-use oil. There are findings that it's cancerous too.

I reuse the oil as much as possible. If you cook potatoes in oil that you've fried fish in, they're delicious and they take out the taste of fish so you can use the oil again. Potatoes will absorb the taste of anything in oil, so if it's something you like, the potatoes will be good, but if not, just fry a couple of slices of potato and throw them away and the oil will be purified.

I do re- use my cooking oil 2-3 times.If i fry fish then I use tat oil for my fish curry and when i fry chicken I use that to fry my vegetables.But I never use fish oil to fry chicken as they smell.Here we do have anyone coming to ask for the used oil.

well i wish there is something in our country who collects used cooking oil to turn it into soap its a good way to recycle used cooking oil. i keep cooking oil when i fry chicken then reuse it up to 3 times.

yeah..now its the season where we're lack of cooking oils as its limited.I reused the cooking oil..its not certain of how many times i have used.What i know,me or my mum will stop using it when its turn dirty(dark in colour).If reused,it depends on what things that we fry..if frying fish..we may continue using it to fry seafoods.To fry something more sweet we will have another set of cooking oil.

I never reuse the oil, not that I'm much of a cook either.