OILS WE EAT 



properties. In the matters that really count in lard and 

 butter substitutes the odds are all on cottonseed oil. 

 The manufacturers who process the oils we eat agree 

 that cottonseed makes the finest margarine, the best 

 shortening, the most desirable salad oil. It has no strong 

 flavor and it never develops an objectionable taste even 

 in mixtures like mayonnaise or when baked into pies or 

 doughnuts. This makes for a long "shelf life" which the 

 grocer appreciates. In the frying pan, too, cottonseed 

 behaves better than soybean. When heated an oil evi- 

 dences the first signs of decomposition by smoking, 

 and this smoke does not improve the taste of fried food. 

 The "smoke point" of cottonseed oil is eighteen degrees 

 higher than soybean oil. Though badly founded, the 

 housewife's prejudice against cottonseed products is 

 apparently real. My friend George Huhn, who had a 

 major part in that poll, traces it back to the time when 

 cottonseed oil, then pretty crude stuff, was nothing 

 more nor less than a substitute for olive oil. It was a 

 poor substitute, but it was cheap. So the inferiority 

 complex was fixed. 



Originally soybean was introduced as a paint oil. 

 Though famous for its non-yellowing qualities in white 

 coatings, it has never supplied more than five per cent 

 of the oil used in paints, linoleums, oilcloth, and print- 

 ing inks, the great consumers of drying oils. Today 

 almost all more than ninety-five per cent of our soy- 

 bean oil goes into edible products. Here most of it 



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