Sesame oil

Sesame oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from sesame seeds. Besides being used as a cooking oil in South India, it is often used as a flavor enhancer in Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Middle Eastern, and Southeast Asian cuisine. It has a distinctive nutty aroma and taste.

The oil from the nutrient-rich seed is popular in alternative medicine, from traditional massages and treatments to the modern day.

The oil is popular in Asia and is also one of the earliest-known crop-based oils, but world-wide mass modern production continues to be limited even today due to the inefficient manual harvesting process required to extract the oil.

Composition

Sesame oil is composed of the following fatty acids: linoleic acid (41% of total), oleic acid (39%), palmitic acid (8%), stearic acid (5%) and others in small amounts.

History

Historically, sesame was cultivated more than 5000 years ago as a drought-tolerant crop and was able to grow where other crops failed. Sesame seeds were one of the first crops processed for oil as well as one of the earliest condiments. Sesame was cultivated during the Indus valley civilization and was the main oil crop. It was probably exported to Mesopotamia around 2500 BC. The Assyrians used sesame oil as a food, salve, and medication.

Sesame

Sesame (/ˈsɛsəmiː/; Sesamum indicum) is a flowering plant in the genus Sesamum. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for its edible seeds, which grow in pods.

Sesame seed is one of the oldest oilseed crops known, domesticated well over 3000 years ago. Sesame has many species, most being wild and native to sub-Saharan Africa. Sesame indicum, the cultivated type, originated in India. Sesame is highly tolerant to drought-like conditions and grows where other crops may fail.

Sesame has one of the highest oil contents of any seed. With a rich, nutty flavor, it is a common ingredient in cuisines across the world. Like other nuts and foods, it can trigger allergic reactions in some people.

The world harvested about 4.8 million metric tonnes of sesame seeds in 2013. The largest producer of sesame seeds in 2013 was Myanmar. The world's largest exporter of sesame seeds was India, and Japan was the largest importer.