Cooking oil is purified fat of plant or animal origin, which is liquid at room temperature.
Some of the many different kinds of vegetable oils include: olive oil, soybean oil, canola oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, peanut oil, grape seed oil, cashew oil, sesame oil, argan oil and rice bran oil.
The generic term "vegetable oil" when used to label a cooking oil product refers to a blend of a variety of oils often based on corn, soybean or sunflower oils.
Oil can be flavoured by immersing aromatic food stuffs such as fresh herbs, peppers and so forth in the oil for an extended period of time. However, care must be taken when using garlic and onions to prevent the growth of Clostridium botulinum (the bacterium which causes botulism) in this medium.
Fats are an essential nutrient in the human diet, but an unbalanced diet is not healthy. For most individuals, it is appropriate to get 30% of one's daily food energy from fats and oils, evenly divided between monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and saturated fats.[1]
Cooking oil is a special problem, as hydrogenation of oils makes them more stable, but also creates trans fats, only found in hydrogenated oils, which are increasingly thought to be unhealthy.
Many cooking oils are known sources of various vitamins (A and E), minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, and antioxidants.
It is best to store all oils in the refrigerator or a cool, dry place. Oils may thicken, but if you let them stand at room temperature they will soon return to liquid. To prevent negative effects of heat and light, take oils out of cold storage just long enough to use them. Refined oils high in monounsaturated fats keep up to a year, while those high in polyunsaturated fats keep about six months. Extra-virgin and virgin olive oils keep about a year after opening. Olive and other monounsaturated oils keep well up to eight months; unrefined polyunsaturated oils only about half as long.(courtesy wikipedia.com)
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