A cooking oil consists of edible vegetable oils derived from olives,peanuts and sunflowers to name just a few of the many plants that are used. These oils are added during the time of preparing these foods.Apart from this, it is used to fry foods and to make salad dressing.Although we might take it for granted today, let us take a look back at how it all started.

The processing of vegetable oils began thousands of years ago, with the help of whatever food materials they had in hand to make oils for cooking purposes. It all began when people learned to use fire and a make shift oven to heat oily plant products until the plants exuded oil that could then be extracted. The soy oil was produced as early as 2000 b.c. by the Chinese and the Japanese, while the southern Europeans had begun to produce olive oil by 3000 b.c. 

The story was different in Mexico and North America, where peanuts and sunflower seeds were roasted and beaten into a paste before being boiled in water. As a result, the oil that rose to the surface was then skimmed off. On the other hand, the Africans grated and beat palm kernels and coconut meat and then boiled the resulting pulp, skimming the hot oil off the water. 

With evolving technology, some oils have become available only recently. Some seeds that were considered to be waste up until now have now being converted to oil. In the coming years, we might be incorporating these oils while cooking our food. Hopefully, the delicacies might be tastier!