HYDERABAD: Cold pressing or wood pressing is an age-old yet laborious way of extracting olive oil without using chemicals. But with low cholesterol and refined oils, which are much cheaper, flooding the market, many have forgotten about wood-pressed oils. Nevertheless, there a handful who would still opt for these natural oils.
“Be it sunflower, groundnut, sesame or mustard, all refined oils are the same. It’s only the branding that differs,” says Naveen Agarwal, founder of Getnuts, a city-based company which has started producing wood-pressed oils. “Wood-pressed oils are expensive because the oil seeds are expensive.”
One should wonder how can companies sell groundnut oil for Rs 160 per litre, when a kilo of groundnut itself costs Rs 120. “A kilo of groundnut can give you only 340 ml of oil. It is all chemical processing and hydrolyzed oil, which is far from healthy,” he says.
Wood-pressed oils are expensive, nearly three times than labeled refined oils. They have a shorter shelf life and make food smell slightly rancid and sticky. But nutrition experts say these healthy fats are high in nutrients as these contain natural antioxidants and can help the body fight inflammation.
As per the National Institute of Nutrition guidelines, healthy oils should have a good balance of all the three fatty acids. “Cold-pressed oils are good for those with no cardiac aliments. These are not heated during manufacturing, hence contain the original nut r i t i o n a n d flavours,” says Dr Deepa Agarwal, chief nutritionist at Nutriclinic.