Almond oil is extracted from almonds, which are native to the Middle East. Almonds are believed to be among the first domesticated fruit trees — they were being cultivated in the early Bronze Age — and eventually spread from the Middle East to Southern Europe. They would also spread throughout …
Walnut oil is cold-pressed from walnuts, which grow on walnut trees. These trees have been around for millennia. Some sources claim that walnuts are the oldest tree-based food consumed by humans. Historians believe that the Ancient Greeks were the first to cultivate the nut, but the Persians were the ones …
Safflower oil comes from the safflower plant, which is most likely native to the Euphrates basin. By 2000 BCE, Egyptian farmers were cultivating the safflower plant as a crop. The seed would eventually be brought to other parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Spain by Arabs. From the Middle …
Corn oil is extracted from corn kernels. Corn is sometimes called maize, and corn oil is often referred to as maize oil. It has a similar origin story to that of corn starch since both products resulted from the inventions of one man: Thomas Kingsford, a British immigrant who came …
Sunflower oil comes from sunflower seeds that are native to North America. Native Americans were the first to use the plant, and historians believe that they domesticated the sunflower before domesticating corn. There is evidence that Native American tribes cultivated sunflowers in Arizona and New Mexico around 3000 BCE. The …
Peanut oil is extracted from peanuts. The peanut plant is most likely from South America. Archaeologists believe this because they have found peanut-shaped pottery in South America from 3,500 years ago. Peruvians were using peanuts as sacrifices and placing them in tombs with their mummies in that same period. After …
Coconut oil comes from the coconut fruit, which has been considered a food source for thousands of years. Coconut oil has recently become widely adopted by people seeking to eat healthy diets, but it has a long and storied past that includes periods when it wasn’t considered healthy food at …
Vegetable oil refers to oil from plant sources. The vegetable oil on grocery store shelves can come from a range of these sources. Oil extracted from numerous plants has been widely used for much of human history and has been around since ancient times. Early people learned to use the …