Soybean Oil

Soybean oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the soybean, Glycine max, and is the second most consumed vegetable oil in the world. It is produced by cracking the beans, adjusting their moisture, heating them to 60 to 88 degrees Celsius, rolling them into flakes, and extracting the oil with hexane solvents before refining and, in some cases, hydrogenating it; per 100 grams the oil contains 16 grams of saturated fat, 23 grams of monounsaturated fat and 58 grams of polyunsaturated fat, mostly linoleic and oleic acid. Beyond cooking, frying and baking, it is used as a base for printing inks and oil paints, in parenteral nutrition, and as a fixative in insect repellents; it has traded on the Chicago Board of Trade since 1951 and was at the center of the 1963 Salad Oil scandal, which caused about 180 million dollars in losses. In 2023 China led world production at 17.4 million tonnes, followed by the United States, Brazil and Argentina, for a global total of 59.9 million tonnes.