There is an oil sitting in most Indian kitchens right now — refined, colourless, odourless, cheap — that has been processed with hexane (a petroleum solvent), treated with caustic soda, run through bleaching earth, and then sprayed with a deodoriser to remove the smell of the chemicals used to make it.
It is sold as healthy. It is sold as "light." In many cases it is sold as "cholesterol-free" — as though that were a meaningful achievement for a product that was never supposed to contain cholesterol in the first place.
This is what refined oil and palm oil actually are. And this is why millions of Indian families are slowly switching back to what their grandmothers used.
Step 1: Where the Oil Comes From
Palm Oil
Palm oil comes from the fruit of the oil palm tree — a crop grown almost entirely in Malaysia and Indonesia, thousands of kilometres from your kitchen in Uttar Pradesh.
To grow oil palms at industrial scale, companies clear primary rainforest — the lungs of Southeast Asia. Entire ecosystems are burned to plant monocultures. The oil that comes to your kitchen carries with it a story of deforestation, species destruction, and carbon emissions that no packaging will ever mention.
India imported over 9 million tonnes of palm oil in 2023, making it the largest palm oil importer in the world. A significant portion of this ends up in the refined "vegetable oil" blends sold at every kirana store across UP.
Refined Vegetable Oil
"Refined vegetable oil" is a category, not a product. It could be soybean oil, sunflower oil, palm olein, cottonseed oil, or a blend of all four. The source seeds are often grown at industrial scale with heavy pesticide use, stored in silos for months, and then transported before processing begins.
By the time a bottle labelled "refined sunflower oil" or "refined soybean oil" reaches your home, the raw material may have been harvested, stored, shipped internationally, re-pressed, solvent-extracted, and blended before being bottled and marketed to you as "pure."
Step 2: How They Make It
The Refining Process — Step by Step
Here is what happens inside a vegetable oil refinery. This is standard industry practice, not an accident.
1. Solvent extraction using hexane After the initial mechanical press, significant oil remains in the seed cake. Refineries use hexane — a petrochemical solvent classified as a neurotoxin — to extract the remaining oil. The hexane is then evaporated off. Traces remain.
2. Degumming Water and sometimes phosphoric acid are added to remove gums and phospholipids. These compounds include lecithin — naturally beneficial — which is removed and sold separately as a supplement while the oil moves forward without it.
3. Neutralisation / Deacidification Free fatty acids are neutralised using caustic soda (sodium hydroxide). The resulting soap stock is separated. The oil is now closer to chemically neutral — and also closer to tasteless.
4. Bleaching The oil is filtered through bleaching earth (activated clay) to remove colour pigments, oxidation products, and trace metals. The natural carotenoids and chlorophylls — many of which are antioxidants — are pulled out. The oil becomes pale and colourless.
5. Deodorisation High-pressure steam is injected at temperatures of 240–270°C to strip volatile compounds that cause smell or taste. This is the step that produces trans fatty acids — the most dangerous type of dietary fat — as a byproduct of industrial processing. It is also the step that removes whatever natural flavour survived the previous four stages.
At the end of this process, you have an oil that is odourless, colourless, tasteless, and almost completely stripped of the nutrients, antioxidants, and beneficial compounds that existed in the original seed.
What Gets Destroyed in the Process
| Nutrient / Compound | Present in Cold-Pressed Oil | Present in Refined Oil | |---|---|---| | Omega-3 fatty acids | ✓ Yes | Reduced significantly | | Vitamin E (tocopherols) | ✓ Yes | Mostly removed | | Phytosterols | ✓ Yes | Removed in bleaching | | Natural antioxidants | ✓ Yes | Removed in degumming/bleaching | | Natural flavour | ✓ Yes (sharp, pungent) | ✗ Removed | | Trans fatty acids | ✗ None | Present (from deodorisation) | | Hexane traces | ✗ None | Possible trace residue |
A 2020 study published in the European Journal of Lipid Science and Technology found that refining reduced total phenolic content of mustard oil by up to 87%. You are paying for a product that has had most of what made it valuable removed.
The Palm Oil Problem Specifically
Palm oil is cheap because it produces more oil per hectare than any other crop. That economic advantage has made it ubiquitous in Indian food manufacturing — in biscuits, chips, instant noodles, vanaspati, and "vegetable oil" blends sold at every kirana.
Health Concerns
Palm oil is approximately 50% saturated fat — primarily palmitic acid. While the science on saturated fat is complex, palmitic acid specifically has been associated in multiple studies with:
- Increased LDL (bad) cholesterol
- Promotion of inflammatory pathways
- Reduced insulin sensitivity at high consumption levels
It is also commonly partially hydrogenated for longer shelf life, which introduces trans fats — the one type of fat that nutritional science has reached clear consensus on: they are harmful, with no safe level of consumption.
What "RBDPO" Means on an Ingredient Label
If you see RBDPO — Refined, Bleached, Deodorised Palm Olein — that is the fraction of palm oil most commonly used in Indian cooking oils and packaged foods. It has been through every step of the refining process described above. It is the most processed form of an already industrially farmed product.
What Cold-Pressed Mustard Oil Does Instead
Kacchi ghani mustard oil is pressed in a wooden or stone ghani at temperatures below 40°C. Nothing is added. Nothing is removed.
What you get is:
Allyl isothiocyanate — the compound responsible for mustard's sharp pungency and its well-documented antimicrobial properties. It is destroyed by high-heat refining. You cannot add it back.
Glucosinolates — plant compounds under active research for their role in cellular health. Kacchi ghani oil retains them. Refined oil does not.
Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) — an omega-3 fatty acid in a ratio close to ideal for human nutrition. Mustard oil has one of the best omega-6 to omega-3 ratios of any cooking oil, approximately 2:1. Refined blends and palm oil offer far less.
Erucic acid — often cited as a concern with mustard oil, and worth addressing directly. FSSAI regulates erucic acid levels in edible mustard oil and all licensed manufacturers, including USHBHA (FSSAI Lic. 12726070000056), must comply with these limits. Lab tests on every USHBHA batch confirm compliance. The erucic acid concern is not a reason to switch to palm oil — it is a reason to buy tested, FSSAI-licensed mustard oil.
The Smell Is the Point
The reason refined oil has no smell is because the smell was removed using industrial processes at temperatures that also degrade the oil's nutritional profile.
The reason kacchi ghani sarso tel has a sharp, pungent smell is because the volatile compounds that create that smell are still in the oil. The same compounds that make your eyes water when you heat a tablespoon of mustard oil in a kadhai are the same compounds that have been part of North Indian cooking for centuries — and that research continues to find beneficial.
When your dadi made achar, the smell of the sarso tel was not something to be refined away. It was the whole point.
A Simple Test
Put a spoonful of refined oil in a small dish. Smell it. Now do the same with kacchi ghani mustard oil.
One smells like nothing. One smells like something.
The one that smells like nothing was processed at 260°C with industrial chemicals to make it that way.
The one that smells like something was pressed slowly in a wooden ghani and bottled.
Decide which one you want in your food.
What to Look For When Buying
If you are buying mustard oil, here is what the label should tell you:
- "Kacchi Ghani" — this means cold-pressed. If it just says "mustard oil" without this, it may be refined.
- FSSAI licence number — verify it at foscos.fssai.gov.in
- Batch-specific lab certificate — the best manufacturers test every batch, not just annually
- No ingredient other than mustard oil — if there are additional ingredients, it is a blend
USHBHA Kacchi Ghani Sarso Tel is pressed at our Unnao facility, lab-tested before bottling, and delivered directly to homes across Kanpur. No hexane. No caustic soda. No bleaching. No deodoriser.
Just mustard seeds, a wooden ghani, and forty years of pressing experience.
USHBHA Enterprises, Kanpur — FSSAI Lic. 12726070000056 · Order online or WhatsApp us at +91 92142 70873
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