Vegetable oils are readily available in copious amounts in our kitchens these days. It always wasn't the case as fats were expensive. Animal fats was used to cook food to make it tastier. It also helped to absorb fat soluble vitamins as well. Only the rich can afford animal foods once humans settled down to farm. Vegetable oil was poor folks' substitute for cheaper fat source. Depending on the region, people started consuming oil from foods found in abundance, olives, coconuts, sesame seeds, groundnuts, etc.., But it was not readily available like animal fat. The seeds have to be processed to squeeze out little amounts of oil in each seed. There are Tamil folk stories about how men would show off their strength by squeezing sesame seeds and letting the oil drip into their foods. Its as cold-pressed as it gets.
Oil was used sparingly in our food as it was expensive. Knowingly or unknowingly eating only a little fat turned out okay for us since fats are dense in calories. But in our quest to make oil accessible for all, we started to find ways to make it cheaper. In cold pressed oils, the mechanically crushed seeds were fed to cattle. Cattle was healthier since they ate fats that still remained in the crushed oil seeds ( punakku in tamil). To make it more cheaper, we had to extract more oil from the seeds. So, instead of mechanically crushing the seeds, the seeds were heated and treated with hexane (refined) to extract more oil. Thus, the name refined oil. The hexane is removed afterwards but there is always some residue The refined oil then have to be treated with phosphoric acid (bleached) to remove impurities as a result of refining. Since we got used to oil with no strong smell, the bleached oil is deodorized by heating it under vacuum. That's why refined oils are neutral in color, taste, and smell. So, any oil that does not have a strong color, taste and smell is refined, bleached and deodorized (RBD).
Heating oil produces trans fat which has been universally accepted as bad. Since all refined oil are heated during deodorization, they have some trans fat in them. But as the same oil is used repeatedly in restaurants and commercial establishments to deep fry dishes like french fries, samosa, mixture, we get more of the harmful trans fat.
Vegetable oil comes laden with omega-6. In life and body, it's always about balance. In this case, omega-6 fatty acids and omega-3 fatty acids. When the ratio goes out of whack, it hurts our body as omega-6 increases inflammation while omega-3 reduces inflammation . Inflammation is the root cause of heart disease. Our body produces inflammation during oxidation. Heating vegetable oil further reduces the amount of omega-3.
Now refined oil is so processed that its source cannot be easily found. Cheaper seeds like cotton seed which used to be thrown away is used and called using a generic term, vegetable oil. The more cheaper the oil got, we started consuming more of it. Deep fry became a thing. It started out for special occasions like Deepavali, annual festival and now its almost a weekly thing if not daily thing. On top of it, we started deep frying fats like Fried Chicken, Gulab Jamun, etc.,
So, in summary lets use vegetable oil sparingly. If we must use it, lets avoid refined oil and go for cold-pressed oils to make sure chemicals like hexane do not get into our bodies. Even though avoid deep frying your food.
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