Peter,
>hand
> (i.e. cold-stone) pressed. I mention this because I wonder if that has
> any effect on its becoming rancid--despite ten years of sitting around
> unrefrigerated it still smells wonderfully fresh.
Maybe. I'm not real clear on this rancid business. I don't truly understand
what it means. What we're talking about is objectionable smell and that
being said, many of the new trendy, cold-pressed, pricey olive oils are
pretty offensive to my nose, so who's to say something's rancid. Rancid as
a result of bacterial action, etc. I can understand but not as a measure of
how 'dry' an oil has become. But then my nose isn't real good anyway.
Also as far as food oils go, linseed is a good candidate but isn't eaten in
the US. Grape seed oil is widely consumed in Europe but not in the US. Oils
can be extracted from most any seed, so there's pumpkin seed oil, watermelon
seed oil and on and on. Apparently the taste for certain oils is acquired.
> I was once told to use
> mineral oil, but along with the others you mentioned, it's a petroleum
> product isn't it?
Yep, dinosaur fat.
> Also, how about the drying properties of apricot
> oil, and the rancidity factor, and whether the extraction process
> affects it?
Apricot is about 100 and I don't think extraction makes a lot of difference,
although there's something called blown oils where air is injected into the
oil which does modify drying. That your oil has been around for ten years
and you still like the smell should settle it's rancid issue.
Nelson
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