Cooking oil is a daily necessity for us, and many consumers often struggle with whether to buy pressed or leached oil. So, what is the difference between the two?

Cooking oils can be categorized into pressed oils and leached oils according to the different extraction processes of fats and oils. Pressed oil is a traditional product that is often portrayed as “safe”, “healthy” and “high-grade”. On the other hand, leaching oil, as a new process in the modern food industry, is often downplayed as “unhealthy” and “unsafe”.

Is this true? Here are some questions to ask about pressed oils and leached oils:

After centuries of eating pressed oils.

Why do we need to introduce the “leaching” process?

“Pressing” is the use of mechanical force to squeeze the oil out of the oil seeds. The oil yield of the pressing method is low, and a considerable amount of oil remains in the press residue.

If you use the leaching method, you can reduce the oil content in the residue to less than one percent, greatly improving the oil yield and reducing waste. Moreover, the scale of “leaching” process can be very large compared with “pressing” process.

Without leaching oil, there is no scale and modernization of China’s oil and fat industry today, which is unsurpassed by the “pressing” process.

How safe is leaching oil?

Leaching is the use of organic solvents to extract and dissolve the oils and fats in the oilseeds, and then remove the solvents from the oils and fats by heating and vaporizing. Extraction is only a physical process, and there is no chemical reaction between the oil and the solvent. These organic solvents have a low boiling point and are highly volatile, and are basically removed in the refining process.

Edible oil produced by leaching method, as long as it meets the technical quality standards of edible oil issued by the state, it is a high-quality, safe edible oil and can be consumed without worry.

Is the pressed oil the same as the oil we buy?

In fact, no matter whether you take the pressing process or the leaching process, the oil you get can only be crude oil (also called gross oil), crude oil can not be directly consumed, in the complete production process need to go through the refining process, to remove the impurities in the oil to make it become lighter in color, clarified refined oil, and to meet the standards of all levels of oils before it can be marketed and sold.

Is there much nutrient loss in leaching oil?

Regardless of whether it is “pressed” or “leached”, lipids that are beneficial to human health such as phospholipids, vitamin E, sterols, etc. will be extracted along with the oil into the crude oil. As long as the quality of raw materials is guaranteed, the oil production and refining process is scientific, the nutrition of leaching oil can be guaranteed.

Special Reminder

1. Regardless of pressed oil or leached oil, you should go to regular channels and buy edible oil with clear origin and shelf life. The unrefined home-pressed oil on the market, although it has a special flavor, contains more impurities, especially aflatoxin content may be higher, and the earth-pressed oil has not gone through rigorous testing and quarantine, there are many risks in food safety.

2. According to the degree of refining, vegetable oils such as peanut oil, soybean oil and corn oil are generally categorized into Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3 and Grade 4. The higher the grade, the more refined it is. However, whether it is grade one or grade four oil, as long as it meets the food safety standards of China’s cooking oil, it is a high quality and safe cooking oil, and you can use it with confidence.

3. Many people know not to eat only one kind of oil for a long time, so it has been soybean oil, peanut oil to eat, in fact, this is a misunderstanding. Don’t eat only one kind of oil for a long time means don’t only eat fatty acid ratio close to the oil, should be changed to eat different fatty acid ratio composition of the oil. Such as soybean oil, peanut oil close; corn oil, sunflower oil close; olive oil, tea seed oil close and so on.

See here, I believe that the partners have understood, do not be too entangled in the issue of pressed oil or leaching oil, choose your favorite varieties on the good, as long as it meets the national food safety standards, are safe to eat a good oil.