To talk about food oils and its true ecological footprint is to get into a biased argument, driven by corporate agendas of multinational oilseed factory farming of the world's top oilseed commodities.
World avocado acreage amounts for only 900,000 acres which is insignificant compared to the world’s oilseed acreage of 596,000 000. To put it into perspective, just four of your typical cooking oils in your pantry, such as canola/rapeseed, soy, safflower and sunflower, represent well over 300 million acres of natural ecosystems that were destroyed all over the world to be replaced by the worst possible form of monocropping agriculture, GMO oilseed crops which are row crops must be replaced harvest after harvest with high inputs of fertilizers and insecticides. This contributes to open soil wind and water erosion, sedimentation of basins, and leaching high concentrations of those fertilizers and insecticides into the rivers and the ocean. Carbon based fuels like diesel and gasoline are consumed in massive quantities, and soil compaction and degradation are the result of continuous tilting with heavy machinery. Oilseeds are the nightmare of sustainability.
The carbon footprint difference, the amount of fossil fuels, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, herbicides used in the oilseed business versus oils coming from long live trees is enormous. There is just no comparison and this is rarely discussed. Seed oils such as soy bean oil is actually a surplus oil derived from the feed used in factory beef/dairy/cattle, swine and poultry agribusiness farming.
Oilseeds grown in tropical south America ecosystems continue to grow at unprecedented 10% per year. These row crops push out the small farmers and livestock into surrounding forests of high biological diversity which fulfill a key role in world's water cycle and global climate system balance.
Today avocados are also grown around the world but there is a vast difference on its true ecological impact being man made forest-forming trees of minimum input that would live long lives. They will not be replaced year after year or season after season. Falling fruit, branches and leaves build up the soil, the root systems go deep and promote water absorption, prevent wind erosion and the huge damage caused by cattle pushed into the forest. The forest canopy created by the avocado trees can reduce heating of the ground and help to mitigate the greenhouse effect by capturing CO2 and releasing oxygen.
You the consumer deserve to know the truth about the "cold pressed" and "naturally refined" avocado oils.
First, there is no way you can press oil out of whole fruit avocado or out of its flesh, this is a misleading representation. "Cold pressed" should only be used to define an oil extraction technique used for oilseeds and nuts such as sunflower seed oil, peanut oil, coconut oil, grapeseed oil and almond oil just to name a few.
If you were to actually "cold press" avocados, you would have to get them bone dry before actually pressing out any oil.
Dehydrating avocados for oil pressing would damage the avocado flesh by oxidation due to long term exposure to hot air. This oil would not be suitable as a food oil. Although some manufacturers would go as far as to refine this oil to the point it is sold as food.
Other avocado oil brands use high temperature rendering (deep frying) of the avocado flesh to brake it down and obtain the oil.
Ultra Premium Extra Virgin Avocado Oil can only be achieved by spinning out oil from the kneaded avocado flesh under extreme watch of low temperature and as quick as possible to prevent oxidation. There is no other true extra virgin extraction process.
Avocado oil should refer to the oil derived/extracted only from the flesh of the avocado fruit and not a mix of the various oils that come out when the whole fruit (skin, seed and flesh) are grinned together into a paste prior to extraction. These whole fruit oils should only be used externally.
Ultra Premium Extra Virgin Avocado Oil relies on the quality of the fresh fruit and on the gentle extraction process utilizing low temperatures and speed to minimize exposure.
You must sacrifice oil yield versus quality if you push for high oil yields by means of high temperature, chemical additives and long extraction periods. You would end up with a highly degraded oil with off flavors, depleted nutrients and it would have to be refined in order to be sold as food grade oil.
Best lemons make the best lemonade. Following the same logic, the quality of our Ultra Premium Extra Virgin Avocado Oil will depend on quality of the avocados that are selected for extraction. Much of the avocado oils in the marketplace come from degraded, overripe or unripe waste avocados. This is the reason you will often see refined avocado oil on the store shelves. The refining process is needed to correct color, odor and flavor. To call someone refined is a compliment. In avocado oil it is a sure sign of an inferior product.
