Seed-oil radar
Every seed oil we detect
One page per oil: what it is, the names it hides behind on a label, where it turns up, and what people replace it with.
Short answer
Olive Detective detects eleven oils on every scan — the eight seed oils (canola, soybean, sunflower, safflower, corn, cottonseed, grapeseed, rice bran), generic “vegetable oil” where the blend is undisclosed, rapeseed as a separate label name for canola, and palm oil, which is flagged for saturated fat and sustainability rather than omega-6 content.
Canola OilCanola oil is a refined seed oil pressed from rapeseed bred to be low in erucic acid, then typically extracted with hexane, degummed, bleached and deodorised before bottling.Rapeseed OilRapeseed oil and canola oil are the same refined seed oil — 'canola' is the North American trade name for the low-erucic-acid rapeseed varieties, and European labels usually say rapeseed.Soybean OilSoybean oil is the most-consumed edible oil in the United States — a refined seed oil that is roughly half omega-6 linoleic acid and appears in more packaged products than any other fat.Sunflower OilSunflower oil is a refined seed oil pressed from sunflower seeds; standard versions are high in omega-6 linoleic acid, while high-oleic varieties are bred to be mostly monounsaturated instead.Safflower OilSafflower oil is a refined seed oil from safflower seeds, sold in two forms: a high-linoleic version that is among the most omega-6-dense oils available, and a high-oleic version that is mostly monounsaturated.Corn OilCorn oil is a refined seed oil extracted from the germ of corn kernels, usually as a by-product of corn milling, and is high in omega-6 linoleic acid.Cottonseed OilCottonseed oil is a heavily refined seed oil pressed from cotton seeds — a fibre-crop by-product that must be refined to remove gossypol, a compound naturally present in the raw seed.Grapeseed OilGrapeseed oil is a refined seed oil extracted from the seeds left over from winemaking, and is roughly 70% omega-6 linoleic acid — among the highest of any common cooking oil.Rice Bran OilRice bran oil is a refined seed oil pressed from the outer bran layer of rice, popular in Asian cooking and in commercial frying for its high smoke point.Vegetable Oil'Vegetable oil' is not a single ingredient — it is a label term for a blend that manufacturers can change with market prices, and in practice it is almost always soybean, canola, corn, sunflower or cottonseed oil.Palm OilPalm oil is pressed from the fruit of the oil palm rather than a seed, so it is not a seed oil in the strict sense — it is high in saturated fat, low in omega-6, and carries deforestation and orangutan-habitat concerns.
Frequently asked questions
- How many seed oils are there?
- Eight oils are consistently named as seed oils: canola (rapeseed), soybean, sunflower, safflower, corn, cottonseed, grapeseed and rice bran. Olive Detective detects those eight plus generic 'vegetable oil', which is an undisclosed blend of them, and palm oil, which is flagged separately for saturated fat and sustainability.
- Which seed oil is the most common in packaged food?
- Soybean oil in the United States and sunflower or rapeseed oil in Europe. Soybean oil is the most-consumed edible oil in the US and appears in more packaged products than any other fat.
- Does the app detect seed oils on foreign-language labels?
- Yes. Detection runs against Open Food Facts' parsed ingredient taxonomy, which normalises 'huile de tournesol' and 'Sonnenblumenöl' to the same canonical entry, so the sunflower-oil flag fires regardless of the label's language.
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