Thanks for digging deeper than I did!
Safflowers look like marigolds.
Grapeseed oil is probably the most “neutral” oil, because it is almost tasteless and colorless, and AFAIK has the highest smoke point of any common cooking oil, BUT it’s very expensive. I remember paying $10 for a pint bottle a while back, so I just used it in baking.
If I was cooking for children I didn’t know well, I’d definitely ask about peanut allergies.
I have a friend who has an intolerance to coconut. IDK if it’s a true allergy, but she will vomit immediately if she swallows any. She told me about one memorably unpleasant incident where she asked afterwards if something had coconut in it, and the cook replied, “No, but I used coconut oil, and that’s healthy.”
Not for her, it isn’t.
Yeah, you will sometimes see safflower as a (much cheaper) saffron substitute. Sometimes it is also mislabeled or deceptively labeled as “saffron.” If it seems too cheap to be saffron, it like is safflower.
If I’m cooking for enough people, i just avoid peanut oil, as it’s a fairly common allergy.
I use high-oleic safflower oil when available (usually I have to order it). It has a higher proportion of monounsaturated fat (vs. polyunsaturated) compared to other vegetable oils. This reduces the rate of oxidation, makes it liquid at lower temperatures, and more stable at higher temperatures. I don’t use a lot of cooking oil, so the stability is useful. It also cleans up better if an oily plate is left in the dishwasher for a week.
Sunflower oil here. Not sure I’ve ever seen safflower as an option.
My go-to is avocado oil. Very neutral and a high smoke point.
I use sunflower for general purpose frying, butter for sauces etc, and olive as an ingredient.
I used to buy powdered mustard but these days I use ready-made which tends to be more economical.
Just FYI, Canola oil is a sort of rapeseed oil that’s produced from a specific set of low erucic acid rapeseed cultivars. Canola is actually a sort of portmanteau word from “CAN” from Canadian, and “OLA” from “Oil, Low acid”, because it was originally developed and grown in Canada.
Otherwise rapeseed oil is very high in erucic acid and not suitable for human consumption.
So all those massive fields of rape plants I saw in England are for non-food use only? Interesting.