I found this staff report, but it doesn’t really answer the question. What plants do they get your garden variety (no pun intended) vegetable oil that you can buy for a couple bucks a gallon at the grocery store from? How is it extracted?
There are a variety of foods used that vegetable oil is extracted from and a few means to perform the extraction.
Here is a link that details it all pretty well (scroll down a bit to get to the parts you want): http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/pressextract.html
You can press the seeds, or extract them with solvents.
- :dubious: Imagines various cartoon vegetables sitting on toilets :eek: *
I was watching a TV series called Equator the other day, which is a documentary about the nations that lie on the equator. This particular programme was about Indonesia, and mentioned that one of the biggest threats to the rainforest there is clearance for palm oil plantations. The statistic was mentioned that palm oil is present in 10% of all American food products.
Wikipedia says that palm oil may now be the most widely produced vegetable oil in the world, surpassing soybean oil.
Here, also from Wikipedia, is a table showing the main vegetable oil sources. Basically, you’re looking at soybeans, palm (both fruit and kernel), rapeseed, sunflower seed, peanut and cottonseed.
So, when you buy “Vegetable oil” is it always the same mix of oils, or just whatever’s on hand at the time? Does anyone know why it’s so cheap? Vegetables aren’t cheap, and it seems like a pretty large amount of whatever vegetable you’re using must go into a bottle of oil.
It depends on what brand you buy. The super-cheap generic oil varies depending on global prices. Whatever is cheapest makes up the bulk of the oil. Vegetable oil means it is derived from plants, not that it is made from vegetables you would serve for dinner. Soy, palm, canola oils are all “vegetable” oils.
From the “Ask Dr. Sears” site:
“contains soy and/or palm kernel oil” or “contains partially hydrogenated and/or…” or “contains corn and/or cottonseed oil.” And/or labeling gives the manufacturer leeway to substitute cheaper, often less nutritious, and even unhealthy oils without changing the printing on the label. Since the price of different oil fluctuates, this allows the manufacturer to put the cheapest oils in the food.
I forget the exact figures, but the TV programme I mentioned above did point out just how cheap vegetable oil is - i.e. it takes x pounds of palm fruit to make a gallon of oil, which sells for really not very much. Hence the enormous palm plantations, and also, presumably, the vast soybean plantations which are replacing much of the South American rainforest.
Who says biodiesel is a green option?
Vegetable oil is usually a combination of soy along with other types of oils from commonly grown plants in North America. You can buy Corn oil or Peanut oil or Canola oil where there is nothing else added. As I was raised where Canola is black gold (the seeds are black), canola is pretty much the only vegetable oil I buy for general purpose use.
Stupid question, but is cottonseed oil a byproduct of the cotton industry? Is it even the same plant, or is there some variety of cotton that is grown for the oil seeds, not the fibres? Or is ‘cottonseed’ some other plant from actual cotton entirely?
Cottonseed oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the seeds of the cotton plant after the cotton lint has been removed.
I saw that as well, but it doesn’t say if it’s a different variety.
Vegetables ARE cheap! They’re probably the 2nd cheapest food group (the starches: rice, potatoes, pasta) are probably the cheapest.)
One of the reasons they are cheap is that the pulp of the vegetables that is left over after the oil is extracted can be sold for animal feed.