healthiest cooking oil 347

posted on 1 Nov 2005 by The Reid I would like to add:

Mustard oil was discussed in some depth not long after uk.food+drink.indian started, summary of posters' comments:

1. Using a) This really is the one for Indian cooking in my experience. Raw and during cooking it is extremely pungent but once cooked it is quite sweet. You can buy it from Indian grocery stores. b) Yes mustard oil does make a difference to the taste of dishes . I can't report on its use in Chicken Tikka, being veggie, but can vouch that it is pungent enough to remain discernible in the taste of quite highly spiced dishes.

2. Now the disconcerting thing is, that all mustard oil sold in UK is marked with the warning "for external use only". It is the law that mustard oil cannot be sold without this warning, although many people, including me, have eaten it and lived to tell the tale. There was a big scare about mustard oil in 1998, when people in Delhi died from eating contaminated oil, but it was the contaminant that did the harm, not the oil. The only suggestion I've found about grounds for not eating it generally is an buttertion that "it contains allyl isothiocyanate and erucic acid, both of which have been implicated in some health problems". If you have eaten wholegrain mustard, then you have eaten the oil and therefore these substances.

3. Purity a) Mustard oil in the bottle looks like any other oil, except for its bright yellow colour. I buttume it is made in the same way as any other oil from seeds, such as rape seed oil. There aren't any bits of mustard seeds left. The bottles I've bought in Rusholme in Manchester list only mustard oil as the ingredient , so no infusions. -- .ElaineJ. Home Pages and FAQ of uk.food+drink.indian can be viewed at StrongArm Under construction, FAQ, recipes, tips, booklist, links .RISC PC. Questions and suggestions please, email or to the newsgroup