History of Grape Seed Oil

Grape Seed Oil History

Research into the benefits of Grape Seed oil began in 1997 as a result of an interesting visit to a small winery in Florida in the latter part of February. It was there that Dr. Joseph Pohorly noticed bottles of grape seed oil on the shelf for sale. After reading the label, he found that the oil was made in Italy.

His immediate thoughts recalled a visit to a winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, and the vast amounts of waste pomace generated from the wine making process during the fall grape harvest. He began to focus on the wasted grape seeds that could be processed into oil. After a lengthy search, Dr. Pohorly discovered that grape seed oil is a super antioxidant.

Further research soon motivated his interest on a process for extracting oil from grape seeds with further study on its nutritional health benefit.

Dr. Pohorly also learned that an oil extraction process from grape seeds was nowhere to be found in Canada, United States and Europe. Oil extraction plants are in France, Germany and Italy but will not part with any manufacturing information, nor do they open their doors to visitors.

Consequently, he decided to launch his own research program in developing a cold press extraction process technology. The literature search informed him that a cold press extraction process was desirable if one wanted to manufacture the oil for health purposes.

Dr. Pohorly received assistance from the Industrial Research Assistance Program for his research program in developing a cost effective grape seed oil extraction process and the extracted polyphenolic compounds.

Fortunately, Dr. Pohorly was able to meet with Dr. John Shi, a Research Scientist at the Food Research Centre Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Guelph, Ontario. Dr. Shi was doing research on the anti-oxidant, lycopene in tomatoes and became very interested in his research of anti-oxidants in grape seed oil.

Tons of pomace, the waste debris left in the grape press after the completion of the grape juice pressing is available from the wineries and is the material which is required to manufacture grape seed oil. The pomace has to be dehydrated first into a workable moisture content so that a mechanical separator can separate the seeds from the skins. Further dehydration is required after the separation for storage purposes, therefore if too much moisture is retained, the seeds will get moldy in the storage bin, and the seeds will produce a poor quality oil and unfit for human use.

About Grape Seed Oil Extraction:

Historically many processes were used to recover oil from various seeds, but the three most common procedures can be listed as hydraulic pressing, solvent extraction and expeller pressing.

Dr. Pohorly chose the screw press expeller for pressing his grape seeds, since it is best for cold pressing with temperatures of seeds not exceeding 50 C. It is very important not to overheat the oil as the polyphenolic compounds concentrations will be lowered. Therefore, cold pressing is the best choice for high potency of proanthocyanidins.

For the past three years, hundreds of people have purchased Dr. Joseph's Grape Seed Oil and about 90% have found relief for their problems, whether it be lowering cholesterol, lowering blood pressure or reducing pain from arthritis as well as many other health problems.