mustard oil :
Dr Arun Kumar Sharma suggests, mustard oil is a fatty vegetable oil extracted from the mustard seeds. It is dark yellow in color and slightly pungent. There are generally three types of mustard oils depending upon the manner of extraction. The first is a fatty vegetable oil obtained by pressing the mustard seeds. The second one is an essential oil that is made by grinding the seeds, mixing them with water and extracting the oil through distillation.
The third process involves infusing mustard seed extract with other vegetable oils such as soy bean oil. All three categories of oil have a pungent nutty taste and a strong aroma.
Being edible oil, it is widely used for cooking in northern, central, eastern and north eastern India. Unfortunately, it was considered unfit for consumption by countries like USA, Canada and European Union as it contained erucic acid which had adverse effect on rats. However, later it was proved that vegetable fat was less digested by rats and that consumption of this oil had no adverse effects on humans.
Moreover, mustard oil is rich in non-saturated and unsaturated fats, and hence is beneficial for heart.Mustard oil has an edge over other oils due to the optimum ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and low content of saturated fats.