Is your cooking oil safe?
Edible oil is one of the important nutrients needed by human body and plays an important role in human health.
However, many consumers are confused by the “sub-headings” on various kinds of edible oil packages on supermarket shelves: the same is edible oil, what is the difference in the quality of oil refined by different refining methods? What kind of oil is safe?
In response, the Institute of Nutrition and Health, China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said:
Pressing oil is a kind of edible oil produced by extruding the oil from the oil by mechanical force, which wastes a lot of oil.
Leaching oil is a kind of edible oil extracted by professional technology by contacting a food-grade solvent with oil. At present, 90% of the oil in many developed countries is leached.
For the current misunderstanding that “extracting oil is not as good as pressing oil“, experts say that the quality of food oil depends not on whether the first process is pressing or leaching, but on the refining process after the production of crude oil.
Crude oil refers to the oil that has just been squeezed or extracted from the first process. It can not be directly used for food. It must be specially treated to become safe and healthy edible oil.
Whether it is pressed oil or leached oil, it is safe to eat as long as it meets the national standards. In China, oil is classified into first, second, third and fourth grades, of which the first grade is the highest, followed by the second grade, and the third and fourth grade are edible oils that we can buy on the market.
In addition, many people think that homemade squeezed peanut oil has no additions and smells better, but experts say it is not recommended to eat.
Experts tell us that peanut oil is usually extracted from small workshops, and peanuts are a kind of oil which is rich in oil. Peanut has one characteristic, that is, it is particularly easy to grow Aspergillus flavus. Usually when we eat a bad peanut, we will immediately spit it out or rinse it, but it takes a lot of peanuts to extract oil, so the merchants can’t pick out one peanut at all. And some small workshops use cheap, long-standing peanuts to extract oil for profit.
At the same time, in order to make peanut oil fragrant and improve the oil yield of peanuts, peanuts will undergo high-temperature fried embryos before pressing. The temperature of fried embryos is generally above 150 degrees. When there is enough fat, a carcinogen – 34 benzo (a) ratio will be produced. Therefore, there are potential safety hazards of Aspergillus flavus and 34-benzo (a) ratio in the earthpressed peanut oil, and it is not recommended to eat.
In addition, experts also remind you that although the shelf life of edible oil is generally 18 months, but this shelf life is calculated from the day of production, not 18 months after opening. So, a bucket of oil is best eaten as soon as possible.
