It may sound a little bit strange, but there are cases of people using fake cooking oil and it direly affect their health. In fact, Food Safety and Standard Commission of India (FSSAI) just recently seized 18,000 liters of fake cooking Oil in Ajmer. Of course, this non-hygienic and non-safe ingredient is not good a good thing to consume. Also, news like this should serve as a warning for us on how we should choose the cooking oil.
How to Spot Fake and Healthy Cooking Oil
Fake and unhealthy cooking oil is a big no-no. It shouldn’t be consumed, nor should be recommended. Of course, we also would not use them in our food hygiene course and our food safety course as well. The problem is how can we spot the differences between fake and healthy cooking oil? Here’s how:
- From a single source. The first thing you can try to check is whether the source is from single source, like olive or avocado oil. Original and healthy oil usually come from a single source. Whereas fake oil usually come blended with cheaper oils.
- Clear ingredients list. Healthy cooking oil usually will list all of the ingredients. Whereas the fake cooking oil usually will try to cover all of the ingredients or most of the ingredients. They don’t want to let us know what the real ingredients because it will open the cover or the veil of their low quality product.
- Clear nutrition profile. Like every good product with responsible health mindset, Healthy cooking oil will list their nutritional profile clearly. Whereas the fake cooking oil will not list them, or even if they list We’ll show the fake one.
- Check the certification. Always check for the quality certification, like the originic or non-GMO The vacation on the label of cooking oil, or on the packaging. The certifications will be one of the most important thing from the cooking oil. If we want to make sure that the content is healthy. As for low quality or fake cooking oil of course. most of them will not have this kind of certifications.
- Check expiry date. Good and healthy cooking oil will have a long expiry date due to their hygienic processing system. As for low quality cooking oil, the expiry date tends to be shorter and also sometimes it will be sold near the expiry date.
- Check the seal. Make sure the seal is intact and in good condition. A good seal is a quality warranty from the producer for the quality of the cooking oil they sell. Avoid broken, or even worse, missing seal, since that means we cannot guarantee the quality of oil inside the packaging.
- Light color and runny oil. Good quality cooking oil should be light in color and also runny. Light in color means there are less impurity and also runny oil means it is clean and not used before. If you see a thick texture from an oil, or maybe you see a cloudy oil, you can suspect its quality. It means either the filtering process is bad, or even worse, it may be used before.
- Pleasant odor. Place an outdoors is truly one of the indicator of the quality of the cooking oil. If you smell something bad from the cooking oil that you are going to buy, put the bottle again into the aisle. Always choose the higher quality one, and your body will thank you.
- Solidifies when refrigerated. With the exception of some olive oil, normally, high quality cooking oil will solidify when refrigerated. So, please try to put your favorite cooking oil brand inside a refrigerator and check whether it gets solidified inside the refrigerator or not? If yes, then you are good to go. But if not, please consider to buy another brain, or buy from another place.
- Higher smoke point for frying. Last but not the least, High quality cooking oil should have a higher smoke point for frying. And vice versa. Low quality cooking oil would have lower smoke point for frying. So, please choose the first one.
And those are the ten points that you can try to check the quality of your cooking oil. Always, always and always choose the hygienic and safe cooking oil for the sake of your health and your family’s health. Please always be on alert because the fake and low-quality cooking oils are coming and use these standpoints that we mentioned to do your own checkup.
