Oil Seeds

Plant oils fall into two broad classes. Essential (volatile) oils are aromatic oils that evaporate on contact with air and can come from almost any plant organ — flowers of jasmine, fruits of orange, or roots of ginger, for instance. Vegetable (fixed, non-volatile) oils, by contrast, come from whole seeds or endosperm and do not evaporate. Within these oils, fatty acids are further classed as saturated (SFA) — liquid at room temperature but solidifying when chilled, as in coconut oil — or unsaturated (UFA), which splits further into mono-unsaturated (MUFA) and poly-unsaturated (PUFA) fats that stay liquid even when chilled, as in sunflower and soybean oil; gingelly oil and rice bran oil are described as mixtures of MUFA and PUFA. Groundnut or Peanut (Arachis hypogaea, family Fabaceae), native to Brazil and carried to Africa by the Portuguese and onward to South East Asia and India via the Philippines by the Spanish, is a top crop in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan; its kernels contain about 45% oil along with phosphorus and B-vitamins, and because the oil does not smoke it is a premium cooking oil, with lower grades going into soap and lubricant manufacture. Sesame or Gingelly (Sesamum indicum, family Pedaliaceae), originating in Africa and grown as a dry-land crop chiefly in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, is prized in Southern Indian cooking as a healthy oil, and its lower grades serve soap-making, the paint industry, lubrication and illumination, besides forming the base of many perfume oils. Coconut (Cocos nucifera, family Arecaceae), originating in the Pacific islands and led in Indian production by Kerala and Tamil Nadu, yields an oil classed as edible-industrial …