What is Vegetable Oil?
Vegetable oil is made from various types of plants and vegetables. You’ll notice all the different varieties of vegetable oil at the grocery store. There’s cottonseed oil, olive, canola, palm, safflower, sunflower, and more. Oil made from veggies is used to help cook the food we eat, as well as add flavor and even texture to our food.
Each type of oil is slightly different. Did you know that there are differences in the amount of oleic acid and other substances in each oil? What’s more, some oils are naturally free of saturated fat, while others have moderate or high levels of fat.
Humans have safely been using vegetable and other types of cooking oil for thousands of years. However, what about dogs? Yes, they don’t cook! But can a dog safely eat vegetable oil?
Vegetable Oil & Dogs
The good news is that vegetable oil isn’t toxic to dogs. However, it can still make them sick. If your canine companion has had one or two licks of vegetable oil, he should be OK. On the other hand, if your dog has eaten more oil, then he could become sick.
The issue is that too much fat can cause a dog to develop pancreatitis. This is a condition where the pancreas becomes irritated and inflamed. Pancreatitis can be severe, even leading to organ damage and death and requires prompt treatment from your vet
Is there a difference between eating fresh vegetable oil and used vegetable oil?
When oil boils, a bunch of chemical reactions happens, including oxidation, hydrolysis, and polymerization.
All of this helps decompose the oil, eventually making it super unhealthy for both humans and dogs.
While fresh vegetable oil isn’t great for dogs, it contains fewer nasty stuff than the used variety.
Used cooking oil also contains bits of the food you cooked in it.
We all know that human food isn’t always good for dogs, so it would depend on what you cooked in the oil.
If you cooked stuff that is safe for dogs, your pup would probably be fine.
However, if you cooked stuff that dogs shouldn’t have, like garlic, your pup’s health will suffer, especially if they regularly get a lick of the used oil.
In the short term, eating cooking grease could also exacerbate the runny tummy your pup is likely to develop.
So, if your pup got to your frying pan before you cleaned it out, keep an eye on him and take him to the vet when you notice anything wrong.