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If there is one item ubiquitous in grocery stores across cities and villages of India, it is mustard oil. For generations, people have used it for cooking and tempering food, as hair oil, even as a massage oil for toddlers and wrestlers. When consumers purchase the oil, they do so believing they have bought pure, unprocessed Indian mustard. But is that really the case?
The label on most mustard oil bottles provides percentages of unsaturated and saturated fats, claims about the purity of the oil and nutritional details. But the crucial information that almost always goes amiss is the variety of mustard used and the oil’s erucic acid content.
Erucic acid is monounsaturated fatty acid that naturally occurs in the seeds of many plants of the Brassicaceae family. According to a study published in 2015 in ICAR’s Journal of Oilseed Brassica, oil from traditional mustard (Brassica species) seeds contains 40-57 per cent erucic acid.
India grows hundreds of varieties of mustard (Brassicaceae family). According to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-Indian Institute of Rapeseed-Mustard Research (IIRMR), Bharatpur, a total of 248 varieties of rapeseed-mustard have been released till 2018. Most varieties of mustard cultivated in India are high in erucic acid.
The high erucic acid content found in Indian mustard and rapeseed species has long been cited as a health concern due to which these oils are subject to severe regulation, especially in the US and Europe (see ‘Global studies’ on p18). Studies have indicated erucic acid’s cardiotoxicity to rats but its cardiac adverse effects have not been confirmed in humans. Nonetheless, due to its bad reputation, scientists have developed varieties, such with less than 2 per cent erucic acid, such as the variety used to make canola oil (more on it later).
To understand the kinds of mustard used in production of mustard oil in India and the permissible limits of erucic acid, Down To Earth, in April-June 2026, filed queries with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, the country’s apex food regulatory authority, under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The key information sought was: (i) can oil from rapeseed (Brassica napus) be labelled and sold as mustard oil; (ii) is it mandatory to mention on the label of packaged mustard oil which species the oil came from; (iii) what is the permissible limit of erucic acid in mustard oil; (iv) are companies required to declare the erucic acid content on nutrition labels; and (v) what kind of deliberations were undertaken before the government prohibited blending of mustard oil with other edible oils. FSSAI’s responses raise more questions than they answer.
Citing its own regulatory document—the Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011, Compendium, Version XXVI, Section 2.2.1 (6)—FSSAI refers to the definition of rapeseed oil (toria oil) or mustard oil and states: “The definition of mustard oil includes three species of Brassica—campestris, juncea and napus.” In other words, oil made from rapeseed (Brassica napus—the same species from which canola oil is produced in Europe and Canada) can also be called “mustard oil” in India. FSSAI also said that the oil must be obtained from clean and wholesome mustard seeds, which may belong to any of the three Brassica species.
Regarding the requirement of mentioning name of the mustard variety from which the oil has been extracted, FSSAI said: “No such information is available.” In other words, mustard oil manufacturers have no requirement to state the botanical species on the label. Same was FSSAI’s reply to the question on the requirement of declaring …
This article was originally published in the September 1-15, 2026 print edition of Down To Earth
