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The following correspondence was sent to Alfa-One (who produce rice-barn oil) and I was pleased to get a very informative response.
I have seen rice-bran oil being promoted as a healthy oil, and I am aware that it is meant to be stable due to high levels of anti-oxidants.
I have some regarding how safe it is.
Firstly, when used in repeated high temperature cooking processes, do the anti-oxidants help protect the polyunsaturated oils from polymerising? as the polymerisation of unsaturated oil is considered a major rick factor for developing bowel cancer. Is rice -bran oil really recommended for repeated high temperature use?
Finally an most importantly, what is meant by cold-pressed rice-bran oil? Are any solvents used to extract this oil from the rice-bran, and if so, what are these solvents and how much is still found in the residual oil?
I am putting together a website www.goodfat.net.nz and I wish to determine whether consumers really should trust rice-bran oil. The purpose of the site is to promote the use of unrefined oils as opposed to hydrogenated oils. I plan to publish the information you provide on this site.
Regards
Gordon Rouse
Hi Gordon
I am CEO of Old Fashioned Foods Group. We are marketing the Alfa One brand of Rice Bran Oil globally and are promoting it on the basis of both its nutritional and functional cooking qualities. The high natural antioxidant levels in Rice Bran Oil contribute very significantly to both of these.
You raise some interesting questions and as you are no doubt finding out there are often no black and white answers to "the ideal diet". As a Company we are very concerned to be offerring genuine product and nutritional benefits rather than hype and I personally believe in the benefits of Rice Bran Oil and use it almost exclusively myself. I have tried to answer your questions below and have also attached a technical information review which should be of interest.
The antioxidants in Rice Bran Oil include alfa tocopherol (vitamin E), tocotrienols (which also have vitamin E activity) and gamma Oryzanol which is a phytosterol and also reduces cholesterol absobtion. The total antioxidant levels are very high compared to other vegetable oils.
The antioxidants in the oil will be diminished over time at high temperature but because of their high starting level more will be retained after cooking than with other oils. They will protect the oil from oxidation and polymerisation during repeated frying but will eventually lose their effectiveness. In tests carried out for us there was significantly slower development of harmful by products than with other oils during repeated cooking. Rice Bran Oil does go dark quite quickly during deep frying so commercial users tend to replace it at least as frequently as other oils.
Currently our oil is solvent extracted not cold pressed. We do use a cold filtration process after extraction to reduce the viscosity and saturated fat content of the oil. The solvent used is hexane. This is commonly used for edible oil extraction and is totally removed and recycled in the process. Hexane is very volatile and as part of the refining process the oil is heated under vaccuum where any residual hexane will evapourate. Hexane at low levels is non toxic.
We are currently developing a cold press process but it will be several months before this product will be available. Because of the very low yield the cold pressed product will be much more expensive but it will have the advantage of an even higher gamma Oryzanol content.
Alfa One Rice Bran Oil is not hydrogenated and therefore does not contain Trans Fatty Acids. Hydrogenation is probably the only step in oil refining that has been shown to be harmful. It is done because it makes the oil more stable against oxidation but the TFA by products contribute to heart disease. A major advantage of Rice Bran Oil is that it does not need to be hydrogenated to be stable because of its high antioxidant content.
I hope this information is helpful to you.
Regards
Ross MacKenzie
Group CEO
Old Fashioned Foods Group
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3 Comments
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Comment By: puziah Hashim |
8:54PM 23/3/2008 |
I would like to know what is the process of cold press or cold extraction?. Could you explain?
Thank you |
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Comment By: Gordon Rouse |
12:16PM 15/4/2008 |
Cold press would imply the oil was extracted using a mechanical means without heat. If you get a chance to visit Waiheke Island, the ownsers of the olive oil distillery there will show you their method, which includes a centrifuge that extracts the juices from olive meat pulp. Such a method gives to most unrefined product.
The cold extraction method I believe Alfa one are alluding to is not a mechanical means as they add solvents (hexane) to the bran pulp to extract the oil. This is usual for most commercial vegetable oil extractions, and a process which is only assumed safe because everyone does it! |
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Comment By: Ramanujam Raghavan Iyengar |
9:57PM 27/6/2008 |
We are Manufactures and Exporters Of:-Cold Pressed oils of Castor, Sesame, Peanut, Flax, Coconut, Cashew, Mustard, Black seed, Etc….,
Kindly Contact us for your requirements.
Regards,
Ramanujam Raghavan Iyengar.
COMPANY NAME: YANTRA
18 ,
Kumaran nagar,
Chennai,
Tamil Nadu,
South India – 600 119.
Fax no - +91 44 42181008
Mobile 99401 81091
E-MAIL:yantraoils@gmail.com
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