Extracting oil the old fashioned way
Extracting oil from fruit and seeds is a practice as hold as civilisation, and oil has been used for cooking as well as for hair and skincare.
Historians have found evidence of the extraction of oil from sesame and mustard, as well as others seeds, from as far back as the Harappa civilisation, circa 2000 BC.
But the centuries-old method of extracting oil is still used in the subcontinent, albeit with some changes after the arrival of electric machinery.
Oil is most often extracted from coconuts, as well as sesame, mustard, arugula and flax seeds using an ox mill, and a kachi ghani, a cold pressing machine.
In the old days, seeds or fruit would be ground into a paste and pressed with a heavy wooden or stone mill run using bulls to extract oil. Now, these mills are run with electricity, but the wooden mortar and pestle are still in use.