What actually happens to the oil before it reaches your kitchen shelf

Have you ever wondered what actually happens to the oil before it reaches your kitchen shelf?

How oil is normally made

Most of the cooking oil sold in supermarkets goes through a process called “refining.” In simple terms — the seeds are crushed, then treated with high heat, and often with chemical solvents, to pull out as much oil as possible, as cheaply and quickly as possible, and to make it look clear and last a long time on a shelf.

Cold-pressing is a completely different, much older idea. It’s just mechanically squeezing the oil out of the seed — like squeezing juice from a fruit — with no chemical solvents, and without adding heat. Just pressure.

What the research actually found

Up to 80%Refining can strip that share of an oil’s natural protective compounds — the ones that were already in the seed.

According to a study published in Frontiers in Nutrition, and hosted on PubMed Central — a U.S. National Institutes of Health database — in July 2026, the refining process can strip away a large share of an oil’s natural protective compounds — in some reports, as much as 80%. These are the compounds that were naturally present in the seed to begin with — and heat and chemical processing destroy most of them.

Cold-pressed oil skips all of that — so there’s nothing to strip away in the first place. It naturally holds on to what was in the seed: the fats, vitamin E, and plant compounds, as they were when the seed was pressed.

Think about it this way: it’s the difference between fresh-squeezed juice and juice that’s been boiled, treated, and bottled for a shelf life of two years. Even if both started from the same fruit, what ends up in your glass is not the same anymore.

And that matters, because oil isn’t just an ingredient — it’s something you put into the food you make for the people you love, every single day. When you cook for your family, you’re not just feeding them — you’re caring for them. What goes into that pot should deserve that care too.

When you cook for your family, you’re not just feeding them — you’re caring for them. What goes into that pot should deserve that care too.

How we do it at Masalaa.com

At Masalaa.com, we press our oils using a modern hydraulic press — think of it as a slow, controlled, mechanical squeeze, done gently and consistently, the same way good oil has always been pressed, just done reliably, batch after batch, without adding heat.

We can promise that every bottle is pressed fresh, in small batches, and gets to you without ever going through the heat and chemical treatment that strips away what nature put there in the first place.

Why Masalaa.com

That’s the whole idea behind Masalaa.com — premium, fresh, cold-pressed oil, made the way it should be, so that what you put into your family’s food is as real as the love you’re cooking it with.