Why We Use Cold-Pressed Seed Oils In Our Dips

High oleic means it has a heart-healthy fatty acid profile like olive oil. Thanks to its neutral flavor, it's the perfect blank canvas for our herbs and spices, with the benefits of olive oil.
Cold pressed and never heated! Many of the concerns with seed oils stem from heating them. Ours is slowly squeezed from the seeds without the use of heat or chemical solvents. When processing the oil in our condiments, it is not heated at any step.
Organic and Non-GMO: Grown without pesticides, and never treated with harmful chemicals during processing.

Here at Fabalish we pride ourselves on using the best ingredients. Everything we put in our products are made with things you would find in your pantry or refrigerator. That’s why our sunflower oil is organic, cold-pressed, and high oleic. We pay a premium price for the sunflower oil we use and we’ll never compromise: organic, non-GMO, grown without pesticides, and never treated with harmful chemicals during processing.

Why Do Some People Think Seed Oils Are Bad?

There’s lots of scrutiny around seed oils¹, particularly conventional seed oils where the oil is extracted from the seed using chemicals (aka solvents). There has been an uptick in the spread of misinformation about seed oils² online and on social media, but research doesn’t support the claims³. We fully stand behind the use of cold-pressed HOSO (high oleic sunflower oil) in our products and love that it contributes to the premium dips we make!

At Fabalish we use expeller pressed high oleic sunflower oil (HOSO). This means that the sunflower seeds are physically crushed at a low speed and temperature. Conventional seed oils are solvent extracted, which means the oil is expelled from the seed at a high temperature using a chemical called hexane⁴.

“Why don’t you just use olive oil to avoid the seed oil drama?”

Cold-pressed, high oleic sunflower oil has a light, neutral flavor that doesn’t overpower other flavors. Olive oil has a very robust flavor that can range from fruity to peppery and often bitter. Using olive oil would change the flavor integrity of the dips we make. Sunflower oil lets our other ingredients and flavors shine!

What does it mean when an oil is high oleic?

When an oil is described as "high oleic," it means that the oil contains a high concentration of oleic acid, a type of monounsaturated fatty acid commonly considered a better type of fat for heart health⁵. Additionally, high oleic oils generally have less polyunsaturated fats (a type of unsaturated fat such as omega-6 fatty acids) compared to conventional oils that aren’t high oleic. Olive oil, a key feature of the Mediterranean diet, is high in oleic acid. HOSO has a very similar fatty acid profile to olive oil: high in monounsaturated fatty acids and low in saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Research has begun to show that an imbalance in omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids may be associated with various health problems, but this is a topic still being studied and conclusive evidence does not yet exist.

What are the benefits of high oleic oils?

Oleic acid may be beneficial for heart health by lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol and helping raise HDL (good) cholesterol. This can potentially reduce the risk of heart disease.

Versatile Uses: High oleic oils can be used in a variety of culinary applications, including salad dressings, frying, baking, and sautéing, due to their neutral flavor and high heat tolerance.

Is all cold-pressed sunflower oil high oleic?

No, not all cold-pressed sunflower oil is high oleic. There are different varieties of sunflower oil, each with a distinct fatty acid composition. The classification of sunflower oil as "high oleic" depends on the specific type of sunflower seeds used, rather than the method of extraction (such as cold pressing).

Here are more resources to check out if you want to read up on the science behind seed oils:

¹ MAYOCLINIC.ORG: https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org

²CONSUMERREPORTS.ORG: https://www.consumerreports.org

³ HSPH.HARVARD.EDU: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu

⁴ EPA.GOV: https://www.epa.gov

⁵ SPACK-INTERNATIONAL.COM: Certified Organic Sunflower Oil in Bulk | Spack Int.