Can I eat sesame oil if I'm allergic to sesame?

Sesame Allergy is a common food allergy and is infrequently outgrown.

Many patients report that, before reacting to sesame paste (e.g., tahini or hummus), they tolerated a few loose seeds and sesame oil. This may create a false impression of ‘tolerance’ toward sesame.

In our clinic, for patients with significantly positive test SPT and/or IgE results to sesame but tolerance to low exposure levels, we recommend avoiding loose sesame seeds and sesame oil. The only way to be certain of tolerance levels is through an incremental oral food challenge in a safe, supervised setting.

However, most patients tolerate sesame oil and a few loose seeds (as the allergen may be contained within the sesame seed and may not always be exposed to the immune system during digestion), because commercial cooking sesame oil does not contain significant amounts of sesame protein.

The process of oil extraction, particularly chemical refining or expeller pressing, removes the vast majority of protein from the oil; the protein fraction remains in the press cake or meal rather than in the oil. Analytical studies confirm that the protein content of refined sesame oil is extremely low, often below the threshold that would trigger allergic reactions in most sesame-allergic individuals.

However, trace amounts of protein can occasionally be present, particularly in cold-pressed or unrefined sesame oils. Still, these levels are generally considered negligible compared to whole seeds or sesame meal. Clinical reports have documented rare cases of allergic reactions to sesame oil, but these are typically associated with less-refined oils that may contain residual protein contaminants.

For highly sensitive individuals, even trace contamination may be clinically relevant; however, for the general population, commercial cooking sesame oil is not a significant source of sesame protein and is therefore safest to avoid.