What is a refined vegetable oil?

Vegetables oils are recovered from plants by chemical extraction using solvent extracts. The most common extraction solvent is petroleum-derived hexane.

Crude vegetable oils contain trace amounts of naturally occurring materials such as proteinaceous material, free fatty acids, and phosphatides. Therefore crude vegetable oils have to be refined to remove undesirable substances.

Refined vegetable oil is a vegetable oil obtained by expression, neutralized with alkali, bleached with absorbent earth and/or activated carbon, and deodorized with steam.

Neutralization or conventional caustic refining has been protected for over a century and has become the most widely used process for purifying oils.

The typical oil refining process includes degumming, chemical or physical refining, bleaching, vinterization, and deodorization. Refined oils should not contained more than 0.25% free fatty acids and 0.10% moisture by weight.
What is a refined vegetable oil?