In our pursuit of a healthy lifestyle, we are always mindful of ingredients and cooking supplies. The quality and safety of edible oil, as an indispensable part of our daily diet, is directly related to our physical health. However, in the world of edible oil, there are some details and hidden dangers that are easily overlooked. Today, let's delve into the things about earth-pressed peanut oil and unveil its mystery.
The "health crisis" caused by earth-pressed peanut oil: Mr. Liao's experience
Mr. Liao is a person who attaches great importance to health preservation, and always carefully selects ingredients and pays attention to various health information on weekdays. A few days ago, a relative came to visit and brought some home-squeezed peanut oil. Relatives proudly introduced that this is made by using the local method of small pressing, not only do they think it will be healthier, but also the fried vegetables will be extraordinarily fragrant. Mr. Liao looked at the golden peanut oil, his heart was full of joy, and he was grateful for the kindness of his relatives.
At noon the next day, Mr. Liao was full of anticipation and prepared a sumptuous table of dishes with the so-called "local method of small pressed peanut oil". The family sat around the table, enjoying their meal without feeling anything out of the ordinary. But who would have thought that behind this seemingly delicious food, there is a hidden crisis.
In the afternoon, Mr. Liao suddenly felt a dull pain in his abdomen, and at first he didn't pay much attention to it, thinking that he had just eaten too much or had some stomach discomfort. But it didn't take long for him to find that his wife and children were also suffering from abdominal pain, and the pain was much worse than his. Looking at the painful expressions of his wife and children, Mr. Liao was so anxious that he couldn't care about his physical discomfort and hurriedly took the whole family to the hospital.
After a detailed examination by the doctor, the diagnosis of "food poisoning" was finally confirmed. Hearing this result, Mr. Liao's heart was full of doubts and worries. After thinking about it, he thought that all this was probably related to the peanut oil he consumed at noon. After all, it's a new ingredient in the house, and the whole family is experiencing the same symptoms. But he felt very strange, he had always thought that earth-pressed peanut oil was natural and healthy, why did such a problem occur?
Where does the "fragrance" of earth-pressed peanut oil come from?
For many people who grew up eating peanut oil, the unique aroma of peanut oil has long been deeply imprinted in their memories. Walking in the streets and alleys, you can often smell the fragrance of peanut oil wafting from the street workshops, and the rich aroma seems to have an invisible magic that attracts people to buy.
But how exactly does this intoxicating "aroma" come about? Industry studies have shown that whether it is earth-pressed peanut oil or earth-pressed rapeseed oil, the "fragrant" smell we smell is actually the result of a mixture of a variety of volatile substances with special flavors in the oil. These volatile substances are like small "spice molecules" that float through the air, stimulating our olfactory nerves and making us feel the unique fragrance.
Unlike clay oil, the company's mass-produced pressed oil has strict production standards. They have high requirements for the selection of raw materials and the production process. In the production process, it is necessary to go through a series of complex processes such as deacidification, deodorization and decolorization, the purpose of which is to remove arsenic, lead, residual pesticides and highly toxic aflatoxin and other harmful substances in the oil, and at the same time to remove all kinds of impurities that may cause oil foaming, oxidation and discoloration. In the process of removing these impurities, some substances that could have been the source of the "aroma" are also removed.
Therefore, the earth-pressed oil that has not been refined may give a more fragrant feeling due to the presence of more impurities. But while we enjoy its deliciousness, we also have to accept that it has some problems. For example, clay oil has a relatively short shelf life, is more likely to produce oil smoke during cooking, and has many safety hazards due to the lack of effective supervision of its production process.
The "fatal threat" of 1 peanut: the hidden quality of earth-pressed peanut oil
In order to gain an in-depth understanding of the quality of soil-pressed peanut oil, a reporter has conducted a detailed investigation on the privately pressed peanut oil market in Zhanjiang, Yangjiang, Jiangmen, Zhaoqing, Guangzhou and other cities. The reporter worked tirelessly to collect 14 samples of earth-pressed peanut oil and sent them to the Guangzhou Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Institute for rigorous inspection.
The results were astonishing, with multiple samples showing exceedances of aflatoxin, acid and peroxide values. Chen Yongquan, director of the Guangdong Provincial Food Safety Expert Committee and professor of the Food College of South China Agricultural University, pointed out with a serious expression in an interview with reporters that according to mainland regulations, the allowable content of aflatoxins in rice and edible oil is less than 20ug/kg. He emphasized, "Peanut oil that is found to have 1 times more aflatoxins than the standard in the test is not edible at all!" When it was mentioned that there were peanut oil samples with aflatoxins of 40ug/kg, Chen Yongquan's words revealed deep concern.
As we all know, aflatoxin is a highly toxic carcinogen produced by the contamination of peanuts with Aspergillus flavus when they are not stored properly. It is astonishingly toxic, 10 times more toxic than potassium cyanide (arsenic), and is one of the strongest chemical carcinogens ever discovered. Imagine that once consumers consume home-pressed oil containing aflatoxins, the consequences are simply unimaginable, and may cause serious damage to health and even life.
Don't buy the right one, only the expensive one? Misunderstandings about edible oil purchase
Nowadays, all walks of life are showing a trend of "involution", even the edible oil market is no exception. "Not to mention that the Internet industry has begun to roll in, even the oil sellers have started." This sentence vividly reflects the current situation of the edible oil market.
One day, Ms. Zhang found that she had run out of oil at home, so she went to the supermarket to buy it. When she came to the cooking oil shelf, she was a little overwhelmed by the sight in front of her. The shelves are full of dazzling varieties of edible oil, and peanut oil is divided into several kinds, what first-class, special-grade, dazzling. Ms. Zhang originally planned to take a bottle of peanut oil and leave, but faced with so many choices, she hesitated.
After struggling for a long time, Ms. Zhang finally took a bottle of peanut oil, which was the most expensive. As the saying goes, "cheap is not good", and more expensive oil must be of better quality. But is that really the case? Is expensive oil necessarily good? The answer is no.
People who often visit supermarkets will notice that most of the peanut oil sold in supermarkets now advertise their high oleic acid content, and usually, the higher the oleic acid content, the higher the price of peanut oil. So, why is oleic acid so popular?
First of all, let's popularize the concept of "oleic acid". Oleic acid belongs to monounsaturated fatty acids, and in the nutritional world, it is known as a "safe fatty acid". Oleic acid has the characteristics of being easily digested and absorbed by the human body, and also has the effect of softening blood vessels, which plays a vital role in the metabolic process of humans and animals. Since the body's own synthetic oleic acid cannot meet the needs, it needs to be ingested from food, so eating foods with high oleic acid content is beneficial to health.
In addition, oleic acid also has the advantages of stable chemical properties, high smoke point, less oil smoke, and especially resistance to frying. These characteristics play an important role in ensuring the better taste of peanut oil and prolonging its storage life. However, it should be reminded that different types of edible oil have different nutrients. Instead of struggling with the price of cooking oil and comparing the nutritional value of different types of cooking oil, it is better to choose a variety of cooking oils to eat alternately. At the same time, no matter how good the health care effect of edible oil on the market is, our daily intake should not exceed 25 grams ~ 30 grams, so as not to consume too much oil and cause adverse effects on health.
How to choose a good cooking oil?
"How to choose a variety of edible oils" is a problem that everyone is very concerned about. After all, the quality of cooking oil is directly related to the health of our diet. Here, we have listed some criteria for selecting high-quality cooking oil, and the next time you go to the supermarket, you can compare these standards with the cooking oil you often buy to see what its nutritional value is.
The mystery of fatty acids: fatty acids are divided according to unsaturation, and there are three categories: saturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids. The intake of these three types of fatty acids in a certain proportion has a positive effect on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health. Comparatively speaking, the higher the content of unsaturated fatty acids (including monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids) and the lower the saturated fatty acid content, the higher the health of edible oils. When choosing edible oils, we can pay attention to the fatty acid composition information on the product label to make healthier choices.
The key to the smoke point: The smoke point is the temperature at which the cooking oil is heated in the pan to the point where it starts to smoke. When the cooking oil is heated beyond the smoke point, it will not only destroy the nutrients of the cooking oil itself, but also produce many harmful substances, such as the carcinogen "benzopyrene". Therefore, we need to choose oil types with different smoke points according to different cooking methods. For example, high-temperature frying is suitable for cooking oils with a high smoke point, while low-temperature cold dressing can be suitable for oils with a relatively low smoke point.
Differences in oil extraction methods: Generally speaking, there are two main methods of obtaining oil and fat: leaching and pressing, and pressing is divided into hot pressing and cold pressing. The leaching process is a process that uses an edible grade solvent (No. 6 solvent) to extract oil from oil, and the oil yield of this process is relatively high, but the content of flavor substances and trace nutrients in the refined oil is not as good as that of pressed oil. Hot and cold pressing are methods of obtaining oil from oil by physical pressing. Due to the use of low-temperature pressing technology, the loss of micronutrients in cold-pressed oil is small, but the oil yield is low, resulting in a more expensive final price. In terms of food safety, the leaching oil, hot-pressed oil and cold-pressed oil that have passed the relevant national standard system are safe and reliable, and can be eaten with confidence.
Effect of saturation: The stability of oil is closely related to our health. The more stable the oil, the less potentially harmful substances it produces when heated. The stability of the oil is determined by the saturation of its chemical structure, the fewer the double bonds, the higher the saturation and the more stable the oil. Therefore, we tend to choose oils with higher content of saturated fatty acids and monounsaturated fatty acids and lower content of polyunsaturated fatty acids as heating cooking oils, because they are more stable at high temperatures, not easy to oxidize, and can better protect our health.
Refining considerations: Oils produced by leaching or pressing were originally called "crude oils". "Crude oil" contains various impurities and harmful substances, which cannot be directly marketed, and also needs to go through refining treatment, including deodorization, removal of impurities and other steps, in order to become the qualified edible oil we see in the supermarket. The oil squeezed out of rural workshops is unrefined "crude oil", which is explicitly prohibited by the state from being sold to consumers. When we buy edible oil, we must choose products that have been formally refined to ensure the quality and safety of edible oil.
Although the eating habits of Chinese are relatively light, almost three meals a day are inseparable from cooking oil. Cooking oil plays an important role in our diet, and there is indeed a lot of knowledge in how to choose the right cooking oil to make us eat healthier. But one of the most important points is that you must choose edible oil produced by big brands and manufacturers, and you must not choose "earth-pressed peanut oil" in small workshops because you are greedy for cheapness. After all, health is priceless, and we should take responsibility for the health of ourselves and our families and choose every drop of cooking oil carefully.