Why Refined Oils Are Quietly Damaging Your Family's Health — And What to Switch To

 Refined cooking oils are processed with chemicals and heat that destroy nutrients. Here's what that means for your health — and why wood-pressed oils are the better choice for Indian families. 

Every day, millions of Indian families cook with oils that look clean, smell neutral, and feel familiar. The bottle says "refined sunflower oil" or "refined groundnut oil" — and because it's on the shelf in every grocery store, we assume it's safe. But what actually happens to oil during the refining process? And what does it mean for the people eating it every day?

What Happens Inside a Refinery

Refined oils begin their life as seeds — mustard, sunflower, soybean, groundnut. But by the time they reach your kitchen shelf, they've been through a process that would be unrecognisable to the farmers who grew them.

The extraction starts with hexane, a petroleum-derived industrial solvent. Seeds are soaked or washed in it to pull out every drop of oil. The resulting mixture is then heated to evaporate the hexane — but trace amounts almost always remain. Next, the oil is bleached to remove its natural colour, then deodorised at temperatures above 200°C to strip away its natural smell. Finally, chemical preservatives are added to extend shelf life.

What's left is an oil that is colourless, odourless, and almost completely stripped of the nutrients that were in the original seed.

The Nutrients You Never Get

Natural, unprocessed oils are rich in Vitamin E, antioxidants, natural essential fatty acids (omega-3 and omega-6), and plant-based enzymes. These compounds support heart health, reduce inflammation, strengthen immunity, and help the body absorb fat-soluble vitamins.

Every one of these is either destroyed or drastically diminished during refining. High-heat processing also creates harmful trans fats and free radicals in the oil — compounds that, when consumed regularly over time, are associated with inflammation, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic dysfunction.

You are cooking with an empty fat — and paying for the privilege.

What Wood-Pressed Oils Do Differently

Wood-pressed oils — known traditionally as kachi ghani or chekku oil — are extracted using a slow-rotating wooden crusher. Seeds are fed into the ghani and pressed gradually at low speed, generating minimal heat. No chemicals are involved at any stage. The oil that flows out is raw, unfiltered, and complete.

Because the extraction temperature stays low, every nutrient survives intact:

• Vitamin E — a powerful antioxidant that protects cells and supports skin health
• Natural omega fatty acids — essential for cardiovascular and brain function
• Antioxidants — protect against free radical damage and inflammation
• Natural enzymes — support digestion and nutrient absorption

The oil also retains its original colour, aroma, and flavour — the earthy warmth of groundnut, the pungent sharpness of mustard, the subtle sweetness of coconut. This isn't a flaw. It's evidence that nothing has been taken away.

Why Indian Families Are Most at Risk

India has one of the highest rates of cardiovascular disease in the world, and diet plays a central role. For decades, the shift from traditional cooking oils (mustard, sesame, coconut, groundnut — all cold or wood pressed) to refined and hydrogenated oils has coincided with rising rates of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

This isn't a coincidence. Traditional Indian cooking was built on nutrient-dense, minimally processed oils that the body knows how to use. Refined oils, introduced at scale in the latter half of the 20th century, are a relatively recent experiment — and the health data increasingly suggests it hasn't gone well.

Making the Switch

You don't need to overhaul your kitchen overnight. Start with one oil. Replace your refined groundnut or refined sunflower with wood-pressed groundnut oil for a month. Use it for your daily cooking — tadkas, stir-fries, frying, sautéing. Notice how the food smells, how it tastes, how your digestion responds.

Then expand from there.

At Bare Naturals, every oil we make is extracted using the traditional wooden ghani method — no chemicals, no heat, no shortcuts. Just seeds, wood, and patience. Because your family deserves to eat food cooked in oil that is actually food.