Relationship between Main Dish Cooking Methods using Different Amounts of Cooking Oil and Phytosterol Content in Diet

Abstract

In the area of general foods, phytosterols are mainly present in vegetable oils, but it is not known to what degree these oils can contribute to the reduction of plasma cholesterol because the amount used in cooking is limited. In the present study, to investigate the contribution of vegetable oils to dietary phytosterol content, take-out lunches were selected as model meals and divided into three groups based on the amount of vegetable oils in the main dish: a deepfried dish group, a stir-fried dish group and a boiled or baked dish group. Even in the deep-fried group, which had the highest vegetable oil content, average phytosterol content was 49.2 mg/diet, which was much smaller than the value calculated by adding together the individual values for phytosterol contained in foodstuffs consumed daily. The boiled or baked dish group, meanwhile, which had the lowest phytosterol content, contained 33.5 mg/diet, which seemed to originate mainly in the vegetables and cereals themselves. The cholesterol content and cholesterol/phytosterol ratio were similar in the three groups and there was no significant correlation between cholesterol and phytosterol content in any of the groups.