Soon, you will have the option to purchase at an affordable rate vegetable oil enriched with Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA), which have immense health benefits linked to heart and brain.
The top food regulator, Food Safety Standard Association of India (FSSAI), is in the process of issuing a notification wherein vegetable oil manufacturers will be allowed to blend the oil produced by them with Chia seed and flaxseed/linseed oil, the richest plant source of alpha linolenic acid, one of the most important Omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential fats having ability to curb non-communicable diseases which are on increase in India as well as in the world.
The blending will be allowed up to 5 per cent, said sources in the FSSAI. When contacted, FSSAI CEO, Arun Singhal said that a notification will be issued in this regard soon. He said that the move aimed to ensure availability of healthy oil at the affordable prices.
Last year, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) through intense research had worked on improvement of the quality of the linseed oil to make it fit for human consumption in both pure as well as blended form.
Linseed oil was otherwise more suitable for industrial application and not as a cooking oil because of high content of alpha-linolenic acid.
However, ICAR found a solution to improve the quality and shelf life of linseed oil by lowering its linolenic acid content, thus making it suitable for cooking.
“The ICAR tested genotype variety of seed (TL99), which has less than 5 per cent linolenic acid, during last year. It also got good results from the experiment of blending linseed oil with other edible oils to enhance shelf life of the oil,” the research body said in its latest report.
It found that “cold pressed linseed oil’ can be used in preparation of several food items like banana chips, papad, pakoda,puri and bhaji,” it said.
ICAR also found that products prepared from ‘blended oil’ were acceptable in terms of taste, quality and shelf life. “Hence, linseed oil is now almost ready to join the group of edible oil in both pure as well as blended form,” it added.
The FSSAI notification will allow bottled vegetable oils to be blended with omega-3 fatty acids and unsaturated fats rich linseed and Chia oil.