Peanut oil

Peanut oil, also known as groundnut oil or arachis oil, is a mild-tasting vegetable oil derived from peanuts. The oil has a strong peanut flavor and aroma. It is often used in American, Chinese, South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine, both for general cooking, and in the case of roasted oil, for added flavor. Due to war shortages of other oils, use of readily-available peanut oil increased in the United States during World War II. Unrefined peanut oil has a smoke point of 320 °F/160 °C and is used as a flavorant for dishes akin to sesame oil. The refined peanut oil has a smoke point of 450 °F/232 °C is commonly used for frying volume batches foods like french fries. Peanut oil, as with other vegetable oils, can be used to make soap by the process of saponification. Peanut oil is safe for use as a massage oil. At the 1900 Paris Exhibition, the Otto Company, at the request of the French Government, demonstrated that peanut oil could be used as a source of fuel for the diesel engine; this was one of the earliest demonstrations of biodiesel technology. Its major component fatty acids are oleic acid (46.8% as olein), linoleic acid (33.4% as linolein), and palmitic acid (10.0% as palmitin). The oil also contains some stearic acid, arachidic acid, behenic acid, lignoceric acid and other fatty acids. According to the USDA data upon which the following table is based, 100 g of peanut oil contains 17.7 g of saturated fat, 48.3 g of monounsaturated fat, and 33.4 g of polyunsaturated fat. Highly refined peanut oil can contain traces of hexane, a petroleum byproduct used to maximize separation of oil from the solids of peanuts. The EPA identifies hexane as a neurotoxin in rat studies. There are no specific regulations on the limits of hexane use in cooking oils. If quality control is neglected, peanuts that contain the mold that produces highly toxic aflatoxin can end up contaminating the oil derived from them.