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lithocarpustoday at 5:36 PM0 repliesview on HN

Study Finds 82 Percent of Avocado Oil Rancid or Mixed With Other Oils

https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/study-finds-82-percent-avo...

"In three cases, bottles labeled as “pure” or “extra virgin” avocado oil contained near 100 percent soybean oil"

You don't necessarily know what you are getting when you buy a processed ingredient, and there are huge financial incentives to not sell a top quality product when you can substitute other things or use cheaper processes to make it.

Some portion of avocado oil sold today is refined with hexane, heated during the refining process, and likely heavily oxidized before consumption. (This is evidenced by the above paper, oxidized = rancid, and it's not a binary either/or there is a spectrum of how oxidized/rancid a fat can be.)

If I see "avocado oil" as an ingredient, sure it could be simply pressed avocado flesh. But it could also be a rancid hexane-refined oil potentially cut with other stuff, and I'd bet that's more likely because it's probably a lot cheaper for the manufacturer.

I don't know as much about how the starches and proteins are extracted, I'd bet it's more benign, but there are added chemicals - even if they are considered safe, it's still not quite the same as eating actual peas and rice.