Shopping for culinary oils can be confusing because what looks golden and appealing in a clear bottle may turn out to be flavourless and lacking in nutrition.
Traditional oil pressing uses a simple mechanical method without added heat, with the best oils, like Clearspring's, coming from this first cold pressing. After pressing, a simple filtering removes sediment before bottling, which is usually in dark glass to protect the oil from oxidisation.
In contrast to this traditional method, most conventionally produced oil today is extracted at high temperature using chemical solvents, before undergoing further bleaching, refining and deodorising processes, the last of which is required to remove the bitter taste that results from the solvent extraction process.
Solvent extraction is a complicated, high-tech process compared with cold pressing but it offers considerable commercial incentives as yields are higher, meaning that the resulting oil is cheaper to produce, and having been denatured, it keeps for a very long time.
There is, however, the distinct disadvantage to solvent extraction in that all the flavour and most of the nutrition of the original oil seed is removed during the production process. [1]Read here about the nutritional content of Clearspring Cold-Pressed Oils. [1] [2]
So, whilst a solvent extracted and refined oil may look appealing in its clear bottle, if it is a culinary oil with full flavour and complete nutrition that is required, the one to go for is labelled organic, cold pressed and unrefined, or in the case of olive, labelled extra virgin.
Traditional oil pressing uses a simple mechanical method without added heat, with the best oils, like Clearspring's, coming from this first cold pressing. After pressing, a simple filtering removes sediment before bottling, which is usually in dark glass to protect the oil from oxidisation.
In contrast to this traditional method, most conventionally produced oil today is extracted at high temperature using chemical solvents, before undergoing further bleaching, refining and deodorising processes, the last of which is required to remove the bitter taste that results from the solvent extraction process.
Solvent extraction is a complicated, high-tech process compared with cold pressing but it offers considerable commercial incentives as yields are higher, meaning that the resulting oil is cheaper to produce, and having been denatured, it keeps for a very long time.
There is, however, the distinct disadvantage to solvent extraction in that all the flavour and most of the nutrition of the original oil seed is removed during the production process. [1]Read here about the nutritional content of Clearspring Cold-Pressed Oils. [1] [2]
So, whilst a solvent extracted and refined oil may look appealing in its clear bottle, if it is a culinary oil with full flavour and complete nutrition that is required, the one to go for is labelled organic, cold pressed and unrefined, or in the case of olive, labelled extra virgin.