OILS WE EAT 



fats, rendered as by-products of the packing industry; 

 olive oil "foots," the residue of the edible olive oil in- 

 dustry; sundry fish oils. Their great vegetable oils are 

 palm and off-grade coconut. 



The food industries, on the other hand, must be ex- 

 ceedingly discriminating. Their favorites are cotton- 

 seed and peanut, imported coconut and olive, the great 

 bland oils of the world. In the past dozen years, a new- 

 comer from China, soybean oil, has stepped into both 

 paint and food. Thereby hangs a tale whose plot in the 

 next few years is going to center around margarine. 



Soybean is an extraordinary oil with a number of 

 uses and a lot of influential friends. But with all its ad- 

 vantages it could not long survive an artificially high 

 price. Normally it is the cheapest of the four great 

 domestic oils cottonseed, soybean, linseed, and peanut 

 but not so cheap as imported coconut. This is a prac- 

 tical expression of comparative values and these cannot 

 be changed by an Act of Congress. They might be 

 changed by research that improved soy's properties or 

 found new uses for it. 



Both as food and in paints soybean has definite 

 handicaps. Compared with peanut and cottonseed it is 

 not strictly speaking a bland oil. It can be rendered 

 tasteless by refining, which costs money. In time, how- 

 ever, its distinctive flavor returns, which is a serious 

 drawback to its use in shortening, margarine, salad 

 dressings, and other foods. Chemists, notably at the 



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