Decoding Multi-Source Cooking Oils For Health Needs

Why is there a need for healthy and stable oil in day-to-day life?

The dietary recommendations have focused on balancing calorie intake and decreasing fat content for decades. The cornerstone of most nutritional recommendations for lowering the cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk has been based on reducing the amount of saturated fat in the diet. A balanced diet should include omega-3 (alpha-linolenic) and omega-6 (linoleic) fatty acids. Associate Professor of Food Technology Dr Shalini Sehgal, Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences (DU), says that including these healthy fats in one's daily meal not only creates a sense of fullness but also slows down the digestion of carbohydrates and adds flavour to food.

Edible Oils

They act as a predominant source of fats in our daily diet. They are the primary ingredient in cooking and various food formulations in India. However, no single-seeded vegetable oil provides good functional and nutritional properties and appropriate oxidative stability. Therefore, using different methods, they need to be modified to enhance their commercial applications with better functionality and oxidative stability along with improved nutritional quality.

Blending Of Oils

• One such method is the Blending of oils which is used for modifying the profile of an oil at an industrial level. The rationale for multi-source cooking oil is that not all single oils offer the benefit of a complete balance of fatty acids and oxidative stability during high-temperature processing or usage. Therefore, blending is a scientific, feasible, and economical oil with multiple health benefits.
• Blending allows the creation of unique blends with different nutritional and functional benefits, in addition to offering a better fatty acid profile, such as low absorption oils; oils with improved taste (groundnut oil: sesame oil); oils for better heart health (rice bran oil: sunflower oil with added oryzanol).
• It has become a common practice in the food industry, and as a result, there has been an increase in the availability of multi-source oils in the market over the last few years. A multi-source vegetable cooking oil is a mixture of edible oils where the proportion by weight of one oil must not be less than 20 per cent. A traditional oil can be blended with unconventional oils to achieve an ideal fatty acid combination.

Conclusion

Unsaturated fatty acids Monounsaturated (MUFA) and Polyunsaturated (PUFA) have active nutrients that provide health benefits like reducing LDL-cholesterol levels and promoting heart health. However, most vegetable oils lack specific essential characteristics in their natural form. Hence, there is a need for healthy and stable oil in day-to-day life.