Did they know this when they reached past the EVOO?
admin | March 12, 2010It’s the world’s biggest selling edible fat. It’s cheap and available in a store near you. At around half the price of your cheapest extra virgin olive oil, it’s often what consumers reach for when they need to buy that oil to ply their salad or oil up the pan. But what is it, how is it made and what’s in it? Here’s the rub.
Made from: Soybeans
Commercially known as: “vegetable oil”
% of total world edible oil production: 23% (Rank #1)
Major producers: US, Brazil, Argentina, China, EU
Uses: cooking oil, salad oil, margarine.
Oil yield: 16-22%, Average: 18-19% – 200 litres/acre.
The Fats in soybean oil: The proportion of fats that make up vegetable oil and extra virgin olive oil are very different (see figure below.) Vegetable oil is high in polyunsaturated fats, linoleic acid and linolenic acid. Both types of fatty acid are much more prone to oxidation than monounsaturated fats which are predominant in EVOO. In fact, linolenic acid is over 70x less stable than the monunsaturated oleic acid. Soybeans contain a massive 7-10% linolenic and and varieties have been genetically modified to produce only around 1% (around 2x that found in EVOO), in an effort to make the oil more attractive for food service where oils are repeatedly heated and cooled.
- The soybeans are crushed
- The oil is solvent extraction using hexane
- The oil is degummed, caustic neutralised, bleached and deodorised (collectively known as refining).
- Hydrogenation can be used to reduce polyunsaturation.
Preservatives that may be added : Combinations of Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), propyl gallate, ascorbyl palmitate and tert-butyl hydroxyquinone (TBHQ).
Other interesting bits and pieces – make of it what you want:
90% of US soy production is genetically modified to be either “Round-up resistant” and/or to reduce linolenic acid content.
High 80% and medium 55% oleic version have been bred to mimic the fat structure of olive oil.
While the refining process removes most of the neurotoxic hexane from the oil,, traces can remain. Legislators set limits on hexane residues. No need for that with extra virgin olive oil. It isn’t made with hexane.
Around 0.5kg of the hexane is lost per tonne of oil produced. Based on the annual production of 31 million tonnes, this amounts to up to 15,500 tonnes of hexane being released into the atmosphere each year as a result of vegetable oil production.
A lucrative by-product of soy oil production is high protein soy meal used for animal feeds.
When should I use vegetable oil, and when is it better to use evoo?