Vegetable oil

[7] Palm oil formed the basis of soap products, such as Lever Brothers' (now Unilever) "Sunlight", and B. J. Johnson Company's (now Colgate-Palmolive) "Palmolive,"[8] and by around 1870, palm oil constituted the primary export of some West African countries.

Thirty years later Michel Eugène Chevreul deduced that these fats were esters of fatty acids and glycerol.

[citation needed] In the United States, cottonseed oil was developed, and marketed by Procter & Gamble as a creamed shortening – Crisco – as early as 1911.

The extracted oil was refined and partially hydrogenated to give a solid at room temperature and thus mimic natural lard, and canned under nitrogen gas.

Compared to the rendered lard Procter & Gamble was already selling to consumers, Crisco was cheaper, easier to stir into a recipe, and could be stored at room temperature for two years without turning rancid.

[citation needed] Soybeans are protein-rich, and the medium viscosity oil rendered from them was high in polyunsaturates.

The idea, he hoped, would make his engines more attractive to farmers who had a source of fuel readily available.

Diesel's first engine ran on its own power for the first time in Augsburg, Germany, on 10 August 1893 on nothing but peanut oil.

Led by Brazil, many countries built biodiesel plants during the 1990s, and it is now widely available for use in motor vehicles, and is the most common biofuel in Europe today.

Because the word "rape" was not considered optimal for marketing, they coined the name "canola" (from "Canada Oil low acid").

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved use of the canola name in January 1985,[17] and U.S. farmers started planting large areas that spring.

[18] Many vegetable oils are consumed directly, or indirectly as ingredients in food – a role that they share with some animal fats, including butter, ghee, lard, and schmaltz.

Synthetic tetraesters, which are similar to vegetable oils but with four fatty acid chains compared to the normal three found in a natural ester, are manufactured by Fischer esterification.

Castor oil has numerous industrial uses, owing to the presence of a hydroxyl group on the fatty acid.

Castor oil may also be reacted with epichlorohydrin to make a glycidyl ether which is used as a diluent and flexibilizer with epoxy resins.

[citation needed] Vegetable oils are also used to make biodiesel, which can be used like conventional diesel.

The use of vegetable oils as alternative energy is growing[citation needed] and the availability of biodiesel around the world is increasing.

[citation needed] The NNFCC estimates that the total net greenhouse gas savings when using vegetable oils in place of fossil fuel-based alternatives for fuel production, range from 18 to 100%.

[citation needed] Oils can be removed via mechanical extraction, termed "crushing" or "pressing".

Oilseed presses are commonly used in developing countries, among people for whom other extraction methods would be prohibitively expensive; the ghani is primarily used in India.

As the degree of saturation is raised by full or partial hydrogenation, the oil's viscosity and melting point increase.

The steam sparging removes impurities that can impart unwanted flavors and odors to the oil.

However, the process commonly results in higher levels of trans fatty acids and distillation of the oil's natural compounds.

According to the USDA, the total world consumption of major vegetable oils in 2007/08 was:[41] Canola is a variety (cultivar) of rapeseed.

Recycled oil has numerous uses, including use as a direct fuel, as well as in the production of biodiesel, livestock feed, pet food, soap, detergent, cosmetics, and industrial chemicals.

Since 2002, an increasing number of European Union countries have prohibited the inclusion of recycled vegetable oil from catering in animal feed.