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.
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2 Extraction 3 External links |
Common sources of vegetable oil include:
Oilseeds:
Sources
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
See also: biodiesel, decorticator, expeller, extruder, fat, lipid, mill.