What an interesting, and dare I say nuanced, point.
Let’s add to it how good fats can become bad through releasing free radicals, which happens at approximately the same temperature that a lot of animal fats are cooked at.
Let’s add to it how good fats can become bad through releasing free radicals, which happens at approximately the same temperature that a lot of animal fats are cooked at.
It's high in monounsaturated fats and studies found that various compounds in EVOO prevent the formation of free radicals, volatile organic compounds, aldehydes like formaldehyde, etc compared to other cooking oils.
One study looked at the use of frying oils over time, since the longer the oils are heated, the more they decompose into harmful compounds. EVOO won out on that, too, and significantly inhibited the creation of harmful products. This would be relevant for restaurants, which tend to reuse oils over long periods of time, or anyone that cooks big meals for themselves or others. If you're going to be standing over a pan cooking for hours at a time, it's worth reducing the amount of harmful compounds you'll inevitably breathe in.
Typically refined oils are preferred for frying because they can be used at higher temperatures, but I've found cooking with EVOO to be just fine, just don't cook things at temperatures where it might start smoking.
Some good interviews with food scientists, etc. Interesting for anyone wanting to learn a bit more on this subject.
I've swapped to using EVOO for most anything where it won't be too overpowering of a taste.
https://www.organicvalley.coop/products/butter/ghee/clarifie...
Its not they are adding palm oil to butter and ghee, it's the because palmitic acid is not unique to palm oil (well some unscrupulous producer do adulterate ghee with palm oil but let's not go there yet what I'm saying apply to pure ghee)
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Fatty-acid-profiles-of-g... 16:0 is the acid you're looking for.
I went searching just now out of curiosity and did find this one [1] which indeed affirms what you're saying.
Personally, I reach for ghee when I want a neutral oil (e.g., for cooking scrambled eggs). And, like you, I reach for some fancy EVOO for everything else. I have to confess my approach to get here was a lot less scientific though; I mostly settled on these two using the metric of deliciousness.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12090031
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15291498/
https://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e363
Pretty sure they're all on SciHub.
Here's some about heat, frying and other methods of cooking when it comes to creating mutagenic compounds:
https://www.marksdailyapple.com/safe-cooking-temperatures/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29911312
https://www.fda.gov/food/foodborneillnesscontaminants/chemic...
Last one is about acrylamide, which I believe there is little evidence to believe it's harmful (it's been a while since I've actually looked at studies on it), but I assume the conditions that produce it also end up producing compounds that can be harmful.