We get a lot of questions about our Tophé Rice Bran Oil.
The oil is wonderful, but if you've never used it before, you may want to know a thing our two! So here are the things most people ask us about our Rice Oil.
How do you pronounce Tophé? Toe-Fay; Tophé rhymes with Gourmet!
Why is my Tophé Rice Oil sometimes hazy? What a great question.
Most rice oils are clear at room temperature. Clear rice oil has been 'winterized', which means it has been dewaxed. Winterization makes the oil clear. The theory is that consumers won't buy a hazy oil.
We feel, however, that the winterization process reduces the levels of some of the very things that make rice oil great. It is our experience that un-winterized oil also performs better in the fryer.
So we at Tophé prefer to give you less processed and occasionally hazy oil!
Hazy oils rule! (And will become clear at temperatures over 80F)
Is our oil "Cold Pressed"? Let's be clear about one misconception: Except for olive oil, there is no such thing as 'cold pressed' vegetable oils!
Let me explain: Dr. Oz recommends a "cold-pressed" rice oil on his show. If by "cold-pressed" he means not exposing the oil to high temperatures, then except for olive oil, there is no such thing as cold-pressed vegetable oil. Why? Because all vegetable oils must go through 'deodorization' during the refining process, or they would be inedible.
After the oil is extracted, it is deodorized. Deodorization heats the oil with steam and vacuum to remove the volatile components present in the crude, unrefined oil. These components must be removed in order to make the oil edible.
Because deodorization involved heat, we cannot say that vegetable oils are 'cold-pressed'. We feel that would be misleading, making you think that the oils have not been heat-treated. Even expeller-pressed oils like canola go through steam and heat deodorization.
The term "cold-pressed" really only applies to olive oil -- the olives are pressed, the oil extracted, separated from the water portion, and filtered. But only olive oil and some high-end nut oils, like French hazelnut oils, are processed that way. Even "expeller-pressed" canola isn't "cold pressed".
Yes, we know Dr. Oz recommended 'cold-pressed' rice oil. As far as we know, it just doesn't exist!
2. "Edible Oil Deodorization", by A. M. Gavin, Journal of the American Oil Chemist Society, Vol 55, No 11, Nov 1978, pp 783-791.
3. "Rice Bran Oil", by Frank Orthoefer. Bailey's Industrial Oil and Fat Products, Vol 2, Chapter 10, pp 465-489.
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