Look at the bottles in the Oils aisle in your supermarket.
If the ingredients says “Corn Oil”, then the label will say “Corn Oil”.
If the ingredients says “Olive Oil”, then the label will say “Olive Oil”.
If the ingredients says “Peanut Oil”, then the label will say “Peanut Oil”.
If the ingredients says “Canola Oil”, then the label will say “Canola Oil”.
If the ingredients says “Safflower Oil”, then the label will say “Safflower Oil”.
but if the ingredients says “Soybean Oil”, then the label will say “Vegetable Oil”.
I don’t get it. I’m not accusing anyone of lying; soybeans are indeed a vegetable. But so are peanuts and corn.
Are the marketers afraid that people will avoid using the stuff if the label says “Soybean Oil”? Are they afraid we’ll confuse it with Soylent Oil or something?
Sometimes the consumer will want a specific oil for a specific reason–olive oil for taste, canola oil for health reasons.
Sometimes, the consumer will want a generic vegetable oil for cooking, and does not really care what vegetable it comes from. Or, the consumer will want the cheapest vegetable oil he can get.
Usually, the generic “vegetable oil” will be cheaper than the “specific” oils, because the vegetable oil can be made from whatever is cheapest, or it can be made from a mix of other oils.
I suppose most “vegetable oil” is now being made from soybeans because that is the cheapest source, so the price of the oil can be kept down.
Why then, is it not marketed as “soybean oil?” Probably some soybean oil is marketed this way. But, it would take a big advertising budget to educate the average consumer, to teach them that vegetable oil and soybean oil are interchangable. And to what purpose?
The consumer is used to grabbing “vegetable oil” off the shelf, so why not sell the cheap soybean oil as vegetable oil, and avoid a hassle?
BTW, under current regulations, Soylent Oil could not be sold in the supermarket, anyway. The FDA is pretty strict about not allowing food products made of people.
I don’t know. Have you tried visiting the cremator…er, factory.
I seem to recall that vegetable oil was originally made from corn and other grains. Sometime back in the '60s or '70s soy became this really big crop in the United States that yeilded more oil, protein, etc. than grain crops. Yet, we didn’t make the transition to eating “creamed soy” or “soy bread” or pouring soy milk over our “Kellogs Soy Flakes”. Nobody looks forward to a heaping plate of soy beans. That’s why they’re almost exclusively used in processed foods. Why call it “soybean oil” when most people don’t even know what a soybean looks like?
You’re quite right, Ursa. One clarification, though. They are mostly used in processed HUMAN foods. A huge proportion of the soybean crop (maybe the majority) is used for animal feed.
