It’s Easy…As Long as You Own a Factory
Did you ever try to make your own cooking oil at home? Say, for example, you wanted corn oil. Take a few kernels of corn and try pressing them in a mortar and pestle, or squeezing them with a binder clip, or even stepping on them. What do you get? A big mess – smashed corn and a clean-up job. But you won’t find any corn oil in your experiment.
Would you rather eat whole corn right off a healthy plant in the field, or...
The oil in your kernel is tightly bound with all the fiber in the whole corn, not to mention the protein, complex carbs, and other nutrients that make corn so yummy and filling. All these components are required for the kernel to do the job nature intended, which is to grow a baby corn plant. So the oil needs to hang in there pretty tight as part of nature’s complete plan for the next corn generation.
Here is the short version of how factories “refine” most oils from whole seeds – corn, soy, nuts, palm, and others. (Olive oil may require a less complex process.)
Step 1. Extraction. The “crude oil” is separated from the rest of the seed through use of a very strong press or solvents. In fact, even if some oil is obtained through mechanical pressure, solvents may be used to extract more. Hexane, a toxic, explosive chemical made from petroleum and also found is gasoline, is often used as the solvent.
Step 2. Degumming. “Impurities,” which are other natural plant components suspended in the crude oil, are separated by mixing water with warm oil and spinning the resulting mixture in a centrifugal separator revolving at high speeds.
Step 3. Neutralizing. Acids in the oil are now neutralized with caustic soda, which converts the fatty acids into an insoluble soap. Some factories may need to further wash and dry the oil to remove the rest of the soap after some settles out. The oil still is a bit yellow, though, and has smell most people would not like.
Step 4. Bleaching. The oil is bleached to make it the colorless liquid that consumers expect.
Step 5. Deodorizing. The factory uses various methods to get rid of remaining smells in the oil.
Would you rather eat the oil extracted with a chemical solvent, then bleached and deodorized?
The oil must be kept away from air so it does not immediately oxidize, becoming rancid and (more…)
