How Your Cooking Oil Is Really Made — And Why the Method Matters More Than You Think

If you've ever stood in your kitchen, poured oil into a pan, and wondered whether it's actually good for your family — that's a fair question, and most of us never really stop to ask it.

The extraction method is the part that decides nearly everything else: nutrition, taste, aroma, stability, and shelf life. There are three broad methods in use today, and understanding the differences makes label-reading a lot less mysterious.

Solvent extraction

Most large-scale commercial oil is made this way. A chemical solvent — usually hexane — is used to dissolve oil out of the seed almost completely, after which the oil is heated and refined until it's clear, neutral, and shelf-stable. It's the cheapest method by far: this process recovers close to 95% of the oil in the seed, against roughly 30% for a wooden cold press, which is most of why a litre of refined oil costs a fraction of what cold-pressed oil does.

The trade-off is that solvent-extracted oil loses most of its natural colour, aroma, and heat-sensitive nutrients along the way. If an oil tastes and smells like almost nothing, it's very likely been through this process.

Expeller pressing

This is a mechanical method — no chemicals — but it isn't gentle. Seeds are forced through a screw press under high pressure, and the friction alone generates heat, commonly in the 60–99°C range. Some operations pre-heat the seed to improve yield, which adds even more heat to the process.

It's a genuine step up from solvent extraction — no hexane, no chemical residue — but the heat still degrades flavour and reduces nutrient retention compared to a true cold press. Most "natural" or "pure" oils on supermarket shelves are expeller-pressed rather than cold-pressed, and the two get marketed almost interchangeably, which isn't accurate.

Cold pressing

This is the closest modern method to how oil was traditionally made in Indian homes. Seeds are crushed slowly, and the press is built and operated to keep the temperature low throughout — at Woodified Natura, our own target is below 40°C. For context: the commonly used international threshold for calling an oil "cold-pressed" is below 49–50°C, so our process runs meaningfully cooler than that minimum bar.

Within cold pressing, there are a few different mechanical setups:

• Stone-based (traditional ghani): slow, low-friction, good aroma retention.
• Metal-based: faster and more durable, slightly more friction than stone.
• Wood-based (lakdi ghana / mara chekku): what we use at Woodified Natura. Wood reduces frictional heat further, which is part of why we can stay comfortably under 40°C.

Which method actually matters for your kitchen

If price is the only variable, solvent-extracted refined oil wins easily. If you're weighing flavour, nutrient retention, and how the oil was actually handled before it reached your kitchen, cold-pressed — particularly wood-pressed — comes out ahead. Expeller-pressed sits in between: better than refined, not equivalent to a true cold press.

None of this makes cold-pressed oil a health cure. It's simply a less-processed version of the same food — which is the actual case for it.

Shop our cold-pressed oils →

References
1. Penn State Extension. Oilseed Presses. Cold-pressed oil is defined as extracted below 49°C (120°F); expeller-pressed oil generates friction heat well above that threshold during extraction.
2. Codex Alimentarius / EU marketing standards for virgin oils — the commonly referenced cold-press temperature threshold of below 50°C.