When it comes to sesame oil, everyone is certainly not unfamiliar. Sesame oil, also known as sesame oil, has a strong flavor, is generally used in hot pot oil plates and cold dishes, is one of the common plant flavoring oils, and is popular with consumers.
Sesame oil on the market is made by using processes such as pressing or filtering after sesame seeds are fried, while the natural production of sesame seeds is very low and the supply is tight, resulting in a high cost of sesame oil. According to public information, in 2020, China's sesame planting area was 281,000 hectares, and the output was 461,400 tons, while the import volume has exceeded 1 million tons, which is much higher than the domestic output.
In order to earn huge profits, some unscrupulous merchants have moved their minds and used inferior oil to impersonate authentic sesame oil, and even secretly formed a black industrial chain. In 2019, an enterprise in Xingtai City, Hebei Province, used low-priced oil to blend privately, blended with the same color as sesame oil, and then openly sold after processing with the label of "sesame oil", which was really harmful.
From the appearance, the color of "red oil" is orange yellow or brownish red, which is almost exactly the same as sesame oil. In fact, the raw materials of "red oil" are far from sesame seeds, and most of them are mixed with low-cost oils such as corn oil, soybean oil, and cottonseed oil.
In the surprise sampling inspection of the Xingtai Municipal Market Supervision Bureau, the composition of peanuts was also detected in many batches of "sesame oil", which meant that it may also be doped with peanut oil. In short, these cheap oils are of varying quality, and they are sold at a high price after simple blending, which is a kind of fraud.
According to reports, when law enforcement officers seized fake and inferior sesame oil, the production of fake and shoddy sesame oil and "red oil" produced by the enterprise had reached more than 400 tons, and there were 24 proprietary production lines, and the amount involved exceeded 200 million yuan. This case unveils the "unspoken rules" of adulteration in the sesame oil industry, and the production chain behind this is worth investigating.
Some people may ask: can a cooking oil made of a little sesame oil, "red oil" and flavor be called sesame oil?
According to national standards, it is obviously not possible to call it that. Sesame Oil (GB/T 8233-2018) points out that sesame oil is divided into four categories: sesame oil, sesame sesame oil, small ground sesame sesame oil and refined sesame oil, and only the last three refined oils can be sold on the market.
Standard 3.1 defines "sesame oil" as sesame seed oil is an oil made from sesame seeds. Sesame oil shall not be mixed with other non-edible oils or edible oils, nor shall any spices, flavors and other condiments be added.
If sesame oil is mixed with rapeseed oil, corn oil, or any other oil, the finished product is blended oil, not sesame oil. The Edible Blended Oil (SB/T 10292-1998) also clearly states:
The addition of one or more edible oils to bulk high-grade edible oils and scientifically formulated edible oils are all edible blend oils.
As for the refined oil that is completely composed of inferior oil blends (excluding sesame oil), it cannot be called sesame oil, otherwise it may constitute the crime of producing and selling fake and shoddy products.
For example, in the Xingtai "fake sesame oil" case mentioned above, the offline supply chain of the enterprise involved in the case has been extended to Liaoning, Henan, Shanxi, Shandong, Hebei and other provinces, with a wide range of influence, the circumstances involved in the case are serious, and it has been severely cracked down by the regulatory authorities and public security organs. Among them, the main suspect was sentenced to up to 8 years, the production license was revoked according to law, and the person in charge was also punished with a ban on business.
There are many cases of sesame oil counterfeiting in China, which occur from time to time in various places. The difficulty of the problem is that consumers have a low ability to distinguish between true and false sesame oils, and even law enforcement personnel are difficult to identify from the color and smell alone, which also brings difficulties to the investigation and evidence collection.
The quality inspector pointed out that the "fake sesame oil" is difficult to detect, the raw material composition is complex, there are more than 20 kinds of chemical substances, and it contains a variety of edible flavors. After repeated exploration, law enforcement officers finally determined that the main component was ethyl maltol and grade B vanillin, which could only be synthesized artificially. According to this, the same batch of inferior sesame oil was inspected, and the unqualified rate was as high as 96%!
Fake sesame oil is basically a blending oil, but the blending oil is also inferior. The first is made of soybean oil, corn oil, sesame oil, cottonseed oil, etc., the raw materials are harmless, and there is no clear food safety hazard. The second is blended oils of unknown origin, substandard quality and contaminants.
The market supervision department of Hebei Province has detected aflatoxin in a batch of sesame oil, which has the risk of teratogenicity and carcinogenesis, which is extremely harmful. As early as 1993, aflatoxin was listed as a class of carcinogens by WHO, which can be called "grain and oil killer". If the raw materials are improperly selected and stored, golden mycin may contaminate grain and oil, turning edible oil into a "chronic poison".
What's more, some unscrupulous merchants also collect swill oil from leftovers from restaurants and hotels, or process inferior pork and its internal organs into animal fat, which is repeatedly heated and refined into so-called gutter oil. If this garbage oil is used as a raw material for sesame oil, the quality risk of the finished product can be imagined.
Another hazard is that it will adversely affect the market order. Counterfeit low-quality oil is shoddy and fake, which seriously damages the interests of consumers, disrupts market order, and aggravates vicious competition.
According to the survey, a ton of fake sesame oil made of "red oil" costs only about 5500 yuan, while the cost of pure sesame oil is as high as 30,000 yuan. According to the market retail price, the profit of fake sesame oil is 4 to 6 times that of pure sesame oil, and if it does not strengthen control, it will inevitably pose a threat to "good oil" in the market.
First look at the color and ingredient list.
Pure sesame oil is orange-red or reddish, and machine-pressed oil is slightly lighter in color than small ground sesame oil. If rapeseed oil is mixed with authentic sesame oil, the color is generally dark yellow; if cottonseed oil is mixed, the color is black red.
According to national standards, the label of sesame oil should meet the requirements of GB 7718 and GB 28050. Ingredients of "sesame" or "sesame oil" are pure sesame oils, if they contain other vegetable oils such as rapeseed oil, corn oil and sunflower oil, they are all blended oils according to the specifications and cannot be sold in the name of "sesame oil".
Secondly, you can smell the taste.
Authentic sesame oil is made of sesame seeds, the aroma is pure and strong, and the blended sesame oil has a blended ingredient and a lighter aroma. As for the blended oil made with flavors, the taste is fragrant but has a pungent odor.
Finally can be compared to the price.
The oil yield of sesame seeds is very low, more than 2 pounds of sesame seeds can squeeze out a pound of oil, and the market price of refined oil is about 25 yuan / catty. The cost of blending oil is lower, the price is also low, generally only selling about 15 to 20 yuan / kg. If the price is too cheap, it is likely to be fake sesame oil that is mixed with flavor or blended oil.
In short, if you want to buy authentic sesame oil, you must pay attention everywhere to improve your discernment. Try not to buy sesame oil at mobile stalls, but choose a fixed stall or small shop with good local reputation and integrity, and combine the above 3 points to basically buy pure sesame oil.
What do you think about counterfeit sesame oil? Feel free to leave a message in the comments section.