Vegetable oil

A vegetable oil or vegoil is an oil extracted from oilseeds or another plant source. Some vegetable oils, such as rapeseed, cottonseed or castor oil, are not fit for human consumption without further processing.

Like all fats, vegetable oils are esters of glycerin and a varying blend of fatty acids, and are insoluble in water but soluble in organic solvents.

Table of contents

1 Sources 2 Extraction 3 External links

Sources

Common sources of vegetable oil include:

Oilseeds:

• flax seed
• hemp (cannabis)
• linseed
• rapeseed
  • canola (a special variety of rapeseed, bred to minimize toxin content)
• safflower
• sesame
• sunflower
• grape seed

Other vegetable oils:

• almond
• avocado
• castor bean
• corn (maize)
• cotton seed
• coconut
• hazelnut
• olive
• palm -from the fruit of the African palm tree
• palm kernel oil - from the seed of the African palm tree
• peanut
• pumpkin seed
• rice bran
• soybean
• walnut

According to the USDA, the total world consumption of major vegetable oils in 2000 was:

Soybeans	26.0 million metric tons (MMT)
Palm	23.3 MMT
Rapeseed	13.1 MMT
Sunflowerseed	8.6 MMT
Peanut	4.2 MMT
Cottonseed	3.6 MMT
Palm Kernel	2.7 MMT
Olive	2.5 MMT

Note that these figures include industrial and animal feed use. The vegetable oil most widely used in human nutrition is sunflower seed oil. Palm oil, which is solid at room temperature, is used mainly to produce soaps and cosmetics. The majority of European rapeseed oil production is used to produce biodiesel.

Extraction

• One can use the "modern" way of processing oil by chemical extraction, using solvent extracts, which produces higher yields and is quicker and less expensive.

• Another way is the "physical extraction", that does not use solvent extracts. It is made the "old" way by expeller-pressed mechanical extraction.

See also: biodiesel, decorticator, expeller, extruder, fat, lipid, mill.

External links

• Oil yields and characteristics.