Mustard Oil vs Olive Oil: Which Is Better for Cooking and Health?
Mustard oil vs olive oil is a comparison between two oils with long, proud histories — mustard oil in the kitchens of Bengal, Punjab, Bihar, Nepal and Bangladesh, olive oil around the Mediterranean and North Africa. Both are honest, traditional cooking fats, and neither needs defending against the other. They are, though, chemically very different. According to USDA FoodData Central, olive oil is about 73% monounsaturated fat, mostly oleic acid, while about 41% of mustard oil's fat is erucic acid — the reason the US Food and Drug Administration restricts imports of expressed mustard oil as a food. This article compares the two on what is in them, how they are regulated in the US, UK and EU, what the health research actually shows, and how each behaves in the pan.
For our own oil, see our Cold-Pressed Single-Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Marrakech (500ml).
The Short Answer
- Olive oil is about 73% monounsaturated fat, almost all oleic acid; mustard oil is about 59% monounsaturated, but most of that is erucic acid (41 g per 100 g in USDA's entry), with just 12 g of oleic acid.
- Mustard oil has a genuine advantage in omega-3: about 5.9 g of alpha-linolenic acid per 100 g, against about 0.8 g in olive oil.
- The FDA's Import Alert 26-04 allows detention of expressed mustard oil at the border because of erucic acid, which is why bottles in US shops are typically labelled "for external use only".
- The UK and EU allow mustard oil as a food but cap erucic acid at 50 g per kg; one study of oils bought in Germany and Australia found seven of nine over that limit.
- The best-known study of mustard oil in people, a case-control study in India, linked cooking with it to lower heart-attack risk than sunflower oil. Olive oil has larger cohort studies and a randomised trial, PREDIMED, behind it.
- For an everyday oil in the UK, EU or US, extra virgin olive oil is the simpler choice; mustard oil earns its place in the dishes it defines, bought from a source that meets the local erucic acid rules.
What Is in Each Oil: The USDA Numbers
Mustard oil is pressed from the seeds of mustard plants — mainly brown or Indian mustard, Brassica juncea, in South Asia. Olive oil is pressed from the olive fruit; extra virgin olive oil is extracted mechanically, without refining. Both are 100% fat and carry 884 kcal per 100 g in USDA FoodData Central. The difference lies in the type of fat.
| Per 100 g (USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy) | Mustard oil | Olive oil |
|---|---|---|
| Saturated fat | 11.6 g | 13.8 g |
| Monounsaturated fat (total) | 59.2 g | 73.0 g |
| — of which oleic acid (18:1) | 11.6 g | 71.3 g |
| — of which erucic acid (22:1) | 41.2 g | not listed |
| Polyunsaturated fat (total) | 21.2 g | 10.5 g |
| — of which omega-6 linoleic acid | 15.3 g | 9.8 g |
| — of which omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid | 5.9 g | 0.8 g |
| Vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) | not reported | 14.4 mg |
Two things stand out. Mustard oil has slightly less saturated fat and far more omega-3 than olive oil, which is the core of its nutritional case. But its monounsaturated fat is a different molecule: olive oil's is oleic acid, the most studied fat in the Mediterranean diet, while mustard oil's is mostly erucic acid, a longer fatty acid that regulators treat with caution.
Composition varies with the seed. USDA's entry describes a traditional, high-erucic mustard oil; low-erucic mustard oils exist, and they look very different on paper. Olive oil varies too, by cultivar and region, but its oleic-acid dominance holds across grades. For how olive oil compares with rapeseed oil, mustard's close botanical cousin, see our olive oil vs canola oil comparison.
Erucic Acid: Why Mustard Oil Is Labelled "For External Use Only" in the US
Expressed mustard oil cannot be imported into the US as a food. The FDA's Import Alert 26-04, "Detention Without Physical Examination of Expressed Mustard Oil", states that the oil "may contain 20 to 40% erucic acid" and that "consumption of high levels of erucic acid has been associated with cardiac lesions in test animals". Mustard oil with unsafe levels is treated as an unsafe food additive, so shipments can be held at the border unless the importer shows the oil does not contain unsafe levels — usually with laboratory results. That is why mustard oil in US grocery shops is typically sold labelled for external or massage use.
The same alert makes an important distinction. "Essential oil of mustard", a steam-distilled flavouring, is generally recognised as safe when used as a flavouring. The restriction is on the pressed cooking oil, not on mustard itself.
The UK and EU take a different route: mustard oil can be sold as food, but with a ceiling on erucic acid.
| Market | Rule | Erucic acid limit for mustard oil |
|---|---|---|
| United States | FDA Import Alert 26-04 (expressed mustard oil) | No numeric limit; oil with unsafe levels may be detained |
| European Union | Regulation (EU) 2023/915, contaminants in food | 50 g/kg (20 g/kg for most other vegetable oils) |
| United Kingdom | Assimilated Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 | 50 g/kg (20 g/kg for most other vegetable oils) |
The EU text adds that, with the competent authority's acceptance, the limit does not apply to mustard oil "locally produced and consumed". In practice, 50 g/kg means 5% erucic acid in the oil — far below the roughly 41% in USDA's mustard oil entry.
Shop shelves do not always match the rules. Wendlinger, Hammann and Vetter (Food Chemistry, 2014) tested mustard oils bought in Germany and Australia and found that seven of nine exceeded the 5% limit, with erucic acid ranging from 0.3% to 50.8% of the fat [1]. The lowest sample shows that low-erucic mustard oil exists; the spread shows why buyers should check what they are getting.
The safety benchmark comes from the European Food Safety Authority's contaminants panel, which in 2016 set a tolerable daily intake of 7 mg of erucic acid per kg of body weight, based on heart-muscle fat deposits (myocardial lipidosis) seen in young rats and newborn piglets. For a 70 kg adult that is about 490 mg a day as a long-term average. A tablespoon (14 g) of oil with USDA's profile would carry about 5.8 g of erucic acid. The evidence behind that limit comes from animals, not people — but it is the benchmark regulators use.
What the Health Research Says About Each Oil
No trial has compared mustard oil with olive oil head to head in people, so each oil has to be judged on its own evidence. Both have something worth reporting.
Mustard oil: a case-control study from India
The most cited human study is by Rastogi and colleagues (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2004), a hospital-based case-control study of 350 people admitted with an acute heart attack and 700 matched controls in New Delhi and Bangalore [2]. Using mustard oil, which the authors noted is rich in alpha-linolenic acid, was associated with lower risk than using sunflower oil: a relative risk of 0.49 for cooking and 0.29 for frying. In fairness to both oils, this was a comparison with sunflower oil, not olive oil, and a case-control design can show an association, not cause and effect.
Olive oil: large cohorts and a randomised trial
The evidence for olive oil is broader. In the PREDIMED trial, Estruch and colleagues (New England Journal of Medicine, 2018) assigned 7,447 Spanish adults at high cardiovascular risk to a Mediterranean diet with extra virgin olive oil, a Mediterranean diet with nuts, or a control diet [3]. Over a median 4.8 years, the olive oil group had a hazard ratio of 0.69 for major cardiovascular events compared with the control diet. The trial tested a whole dietary pattern, not olive oil alone.
Guasch-Ferré and colleagues followed 92,383 US adults for 28 years (Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2022) [4]. Those eating more than half a tablespoon of olive oil a day had a 19% lower risk of cardiovascular death than those who rarely ate it. The same study found no significant difference when olive oil was compared with other vegetable oils combined — an honest reminder that the biggest gains come from replacing butter, margarine and similar fats, not from swapping one plant oil for another.
Cooking With Each: Heat, Pungency and Flavour
Mustard oil's flavour is the reason people love it. The sharp, nose-tingling heat comes largely from allyl isothiocyanate, the compound that forms when mustard seed is crushed, and traditional cold-pressed kachi ghani oil keeps plenty of it. Many cooks heat mustard oil until it just begins to smoke before adding spices, which softens that raw edge. Its pungency defines Bengali shorshe dishes, pickles and much of North Indian home cooking; no other oil tastes the same.
Extra virgin olive oil is fruity, grassy and often peppery, and it tastes of something when eaten raw — on salads, bread or a finished dal. On heat, both oils cope with everyday cooking. Quoted smoke points vary by source, and smoke point is not a good guide to how an oil breaks down anyway. Oxidative stability depends more on fat type and antioxidants: olive oil's fat is mostly monounsaturated, and extra virgin oil carries vitamin E and polyphenols that protect it in the pan, while mustard oil carries about twice as much polyunsaturated fat, the type most prone to oxidation. Our guides to olive oil at high heat and the healthiest oil for frying cover the research in detail.
Which Oil for Which Job
| Cooking job | Reach for | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Bengali shorshe dishes, achar and pickles | Mustard oil | The pungency is part of the dish |
| Dressings, dips and drizzling over finished food | Extra virgin olive oil | Pleasant raw, with polyphenols intact |
| Everyday sautéing, curries and dals | Either | Olive oil as the everyday default; mustard oil where its flavour suits |
| Roasting vegetables | Extra virgin olive oil | Stable at roasting heat, with a fruitier finish |
| Daily use in the UK, EU or US | Extra virgin olive oil | No erucic acid question to manage |
Many South Asian households already work this way: mustard oil for the dishes that need it, a second oil for everything else. Our article on olive oil for Indian cooking covers where olive oil suits the cuisine and where it does not.
Three Fair Objections
"Mustard oil has been eaten for generations without harm." That tradition is real, and the Indian case-control study points in mustard oil's favour against sunflower oil [2]. The concern about erucic acid rests on animal studies, and regulators have set limits rather than bans in the UK and EU. Long tradition and caution about erucic acid can both be true; buying oil that meets the local limit respects both.
"Mustard oil has more omega-3 than olive oil." It does — nearly eight times as much alpha-linolenic acid per 100 g in USDA's data. That is mustard oil's strongest nutritional point. Omega-3 also comes from walnuts, flaxseed and oily fish, so it need not depend on the cooking oil.
"Olive oil is a Western import with no place in South Asian food." Indian cooking has always used different fats by region — mustard, coconut, sesame, groundnut, ghee. Olive oil is one more option, chosen dish by dish, not a replacement for tradition.
How to Choose Either Oil
If you buy mustard oil to cook with, read the label and the seller's claims. In the US, a bottle marked "for external use only" is not sold as food. In the UK and EU, look for oil sold as a food by a reputable supplier, ideally one that states the erucic acid content or uses a low-erucic variety.
For olive oil, choose extra virgin rather than "light" or "pure", which are refined. Look for a harvest date, dark glass and a named origin. For a fuller walkthrough, see our guide to choosing a quality olive oil.
Why Sidr & Stone
If olive oil is going to be the everyday oil in your kitchen, it should be one you can trace from tree to bottle. Sidr & Stone's Cold-Pressed Single-Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Marrakech (500ml) is pressed from olives grown on our own family-owned farm on the plains outside Marrakech, Morocco.
- Single-estate — Sidr & Stone's olive oil comes from our own family-owned farm near Marrakech, and we control every step from tree to bottle, with no blending across origins.
- Rain-fed — our trees are not irrigated; they take what the season gives.
- Organically grown — no synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides are used (not yet certified; certification is in progress).
- Single harvest — a small, limited batch, picked when the fruit is ready; the current batch's harvest details are on the product page.
- Cold-pressed within hours of harvest — mechanical extraction only, with no solvents, refining or deodorising.
- Unfiltered extra virgin — minimally processed, so it may show natural sediment, which is normal.
- 100% natural — a single ingredient, olive oil, with nothing added.
- Dark glass with a gold label — protective packaging against light.
- 10% of profits to charity — a brand-wide commitment.
- Fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
We will not tell you our oil should replace mustard oil in a shorshe maach — it should not, and that dish deserves its own oil. What we will say is that our oil is single-estate Moroccan, rain-fed, organically grown and cold-pressed within hours of harvest: the unrefined extra virgin kind that suits the everyday pan and tastes best poured over the finished dish.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is mustard oil better than olive oil?
Not overall. Mustard oil has more omega-3 and slightly less saturated fat, but about 41% of its fat is erucic acid in USDA's data, and olive oil has stronger human evidence behind it, including the PREDIMED trial. Mustard oil is the better choice only for the dishes that depend on its flavour.
Why is mustard oil banned for cooking in the US?
Under FDA Import Alert 26-04, expressed mustard oil can be detained because it may contain 20–40% erucic acid, which has been linked to heart lesions in test animals. Steam-distilled essential oil of mustard, used as a flavouring, is not affected.
Is mustard oil legal to eat in the UK and EU?
Yes, within a limit of 50 g of erucic acid per kg of oil (5%). Some bottles on sale exceed it, so buy from a supplier that sells it as a food.
Which has more omega-3, mustard oil or olive oil?
Mustard oil, by a wide margin: about 5.9 g of alpha-linolenic acid per 100 g, against about 0.8 g in olive oil, according to USDA FoodData Central.
Is Sidr & Stone's olive oil suitable for Indian cooking?
Yes, for sautéing, curries, dals, roasting and finishing. For dishes built on mustard oil's pungency, we would keep mustard oil.
Can I mix mustard oil and olive oil?
Yes. Some cooks use a little mustard oil for flavour and olive oil for the rest, which keeps the taste while reducing erucic acid intake.
Where can I buy single-estate extra virgin olive oil?
Look for a producer that names one farm and one origin and bottles in dark glass. Ours is available to pre-order from our limited single-harvest batch, with fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Is olive oil a medicine?
No. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine. It has a long traditional history — including being honoured in the Prophetic Sunnah — and a substantial body of modern research, particularly around polyphenols, cardiovascular health, and the Mediterranean diet pattern. It can be a worthwhile part of a healthy routine, but it does not cure diseases and is not a substitute for medical care. Be cautious of any olive oil marketed with specific disease-cure claims.
Final Thoughts
Mustard oil and olive oil are both good, traditional oils, and the honest comparison is not a contest of heritage. On the numbers, mustard oil wins on omega-3 and has encouraging, if limited, evidence from India. Olive oil wins on oleic acid, on the depth of human research, and on simplicity, because there is no erucic acid limit to keep an eye on. For most kitchens in the UK, EU and US, that makes extra virgin olive oil the sensible everyday oil, with mustard oil kept for the dishes it was made for.
For how olive oil ranks against every other common oil, see our guide to the healthiest cooking oil, and our comparisons of olive oil vs ghee and olive oil vs canola oil.
Our Cold-Pressed Single-Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Marrakech (500ml) — rain-fed, organically grown and unfiltered — is available to pre-order now from our limited single-harvest batch, with fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Our extra virgin olive oil is grown organically on our own single-estate farm on the plains outside Marrakech: we control every step from tree to bottle, and no synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers are used. It is not yet certified organic — certification is in progress, and we will publish it as soon as it comes through.
References
- Wendlinger C, Hammann S, Vetter W. Various concentrations of erucic acid in mustard oil and mustard. Food Chem. 2014;153:393–397. PMID 24491745. doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2013.12.073
- Rastogi T, Reddy KS, Vaz M, Spiegelman D, Prabhakaran D, Willett WC, Stampfer MJ, Ascherio A. Diet and risk of ischemic heart disease in India. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004;79(4):582–592. PMID 15051601. doi:10.1093/ajcn/79.4.582
- Estruch R, Ros E, Salas-Salvadó J, Covas MI, Corella D, Arós F, et al.; PREDIMED Study Investigators. Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease with a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil or nuts. N Engl J Med. 2018;378(25):e34. PMID 29897866. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1800389
- Guasch-Ferré M, Li Y, Willett WC, Sun Q, Sampson L, Salas-Salvadó J, Martínez-González MA, Stampfer MJ, Hu FB. Consumption of olive oil and risk of total and cause-specific mortality among U.S. adults. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2022;79(2):101–112. PMID 35027106. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2021.10.041
Disclaimer: This article compares mustard oil and olive oil using USDA FoodData Central composition data, the FDA import alert on expressed mustard oil, UK and EU contaminant rules, and published research available at the time of writing; regulations and research findings may change, and readers should check current sources. Comparisons are made in good faith and in fair terms, and nothing here disparages mustard oil's place in South Asian cooking. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine, and is not a substitute for medical treatment of any condition. For any health concern, consult a qualified medical professional.