Naturally, oil seeds can be just pressed (crushed) to extract oil. Oil-seeds such as sunflower, coconut, sesame, groundnut are used to extract oils by using cold-press machines which is a natural process without the use of heat.

Cold Pressed oil refers to oil extracted naturally by using cold press machine and not using external heat to extract oil. The temperature in a natural cold-press oil extraction system is less than 50 degrees celsius. This temperature is a little over room temperature because of the friction during the grinding/pressing process.  As the temperature does not exceed 50 degrees Celcius, all the essential nutrients and flavors are retained. Thus Cold Pressed oil is considered to be healthy.

Cold-pressed oils have a history starting more than 5 millennia ago. From archaeological excavations and studies, it has been determined that Harappans of the Indus Valley Civilization had the technical know-how of extracting oil from sesame seeds using cold-press oil extraction machines. Origins of Cold Pressed oil can be traced backed to the Indus Valley Civilization. Oil-pressing machines were found in the ruins of Harappa and were dated to be 5000 years old.

In the earlier times, “Ghani” which was a contraption that was long and cylindrical had been used for extracting oil from the seeds. Ghani consisted of a mortar and pestle which was made of wood or stone and extracted oil from oilseeds by applying pressure with the help of a perambulating animal. In this process, a lot of heat was not generated and it was one of the simplest ways of extracting oil.