Olive oil: To saute or not to saute, that is the question

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By way of fats in my kitchen you will only find olive oil, coconut oil and butter. I've been using butter to saute and the coconut oil for baking mostly. I have sauteed with the coconut oil on occasion but mostly use butter. I guess really it's frying that I do with the butter. Is there a great difference? Now I'm not sure. So, more specifically I cook eggs in butter but have done veggies and chicken in coconut oil. Anyway, that isn't the point.

My husband has eggs for breakfast, and God bless him, he usually makes his own on weekday mornings. He uses the EVOO we have on hand to cook his eggs. I hadn't thought much of it until a fellow ballet mom mentioned that olive oil should never be heated. I hadn't heard that before and was a bit surprised since one of my favorite recipes in Nourishing Traditions calls for baking with a butter/ olive oil combo.  So, I've decided to get to the bottom of the issue, or at least try. I've been doing a little research which I will attempt to regurgitate here mostly to help me remember and to have what I'm learning all in one place.

Katie over at Kitchen Stewardship is always a wealth of information and this topic is no exception. She did some delving into the olive oil issue and it doesn't seem to be all that cut and dry as one would hope it to be. She has a few posts on the topic of EVOO but I think I found my answer in one of her responses to a comment at the bottom of this post. (This is my comment on the comment. To see the original scroll up.) The commenter asked if it was harmful to saute with EVOO and Katie's response was that it's not as good for you but not harmful. When EVOO is heated some of the nutrients will be damaged but the real trouble comes when you reach the smoke point of the oil. For EVOO that's over 300F so a non aggressive saute should be ok, I think.

Basically it's really bad when an oil, any oil, reaches its smoking point. If your oil starts to smoke throw it out and start over!

Here are some other good sources:

Vital Choices Newsletter : Can Extra Virgin Olive Oil Stand Your Kitchen's Heat?
This article seems to say much of the same thing. Heating EVOO will take away some of it's good properties but will not make it harmful.

Teatro Naturale: The scientific truth on cooking with extra virgin olive oil. This article suggests that frying with high quality evoo is best. (It's a longish article and I skimmed the first part but read more in detail the last part.)

To sum up what I've been reading. EVOO cold = best.  EVOO heated = not great but not harmful. EVOO smoking = horrid!

 So, after all of that I think I feel safe letting my husband prepare his breakfast in EVOO. Definitive, huh.