Mustard Oil

Abstract

The edible oils of vegetable origin are the most important sources of cooking oil. The country produces nearly 25 million tonnes of such oilseeds out of which mustard alone constitutes ¼ of the production. Mustard oil is the popular cooking oil in Northen, Central, Eastern and North Eastern Region. Natural unrefined mustard oil extracted through cold process is quite pungent. The consumers of traditional product prefer pungent oil. Till now the extraction of pungent oil could be possible only by Rotary Ghani due to mustard seed moisture range of 10-12%, low temperature of extraction in wooden bowl wherein the pungent principle - allyl isothiocyanate does not evaporate. However, the expeller made of metallic components and high compression ratio raises the seed temperature upto 80-100°C resulting in loss of pungent principles. The "Modern" oil expeller provides high pungency mustard oil by low temperature crushing through incorporation of a water cooled chamber and processing at critical moisture levels of oilseed.