How do they make vegetable oil from vegetables?

Question

I don't get it - vegetable oil, peanut oil, etc - how do you get oil from a vegetable? A website explaining it would suffice :)

Answer 1

Just about anything made of organic matter contains a certain amount of oil or fat, just as animal bodies (including humans) do. How the fat, oil in this case, is extracted varies, somewhat, depending on the source. Generally the vegetable in question, or the relevent parts thereof (orange oil comes from orange peel, not the flesh of the fruit, for example) is pressed and/or heated to extract the liquid content, which is then separated into its component parts. Oils have a different weight and consistency than other liquids, so they can usually be separated from the water, acids, etc. through further heating--sometimes distilling--or filtering.

Answer 2

Vegetable fats and oils are substances composed of triglycerides, derived from plants. Nominally, oils are liquid at ambient temperature, and fats are solid, but this is an imprecise definition, as ambient temperatures vary, and typically there are "melting ranges" rather than "melting points". A dense brittle fat is a wax.

Triglyceride vegetable fats and oils include not only edible, but also inedible vegetable fats and oils such as linseed oil, tung oil, and castor oil, used in lubricants, paints, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and other industrial purposes. Although thought of as esters of glycerin and a varying blend of fatty acids, in fact these oils contain free fatty acids and diglycerides as well.

Triglyceride-based vegetable fats and oils can be transformed through partial or complete hydrogenation to fats and oils of higher melting point. The hydrogenation process involves sparging the oil at high temperature and pressure with hydrogen in the presence of a catalyst, typically a powdered nickel compound. As each double-bond in the triglyceride is broken, two hydrogen atoms form single bonds. The elimination of double-bonds by adding hydrogen atoms is called saturation; as the degree of saturation increases, the oil progresses towards being fully hydrogenated. An oil may be hydrogenated to increase resistance to rancidity (oxidation) or to change its physical characteristics. As the degree of saturation increases, the oil's viscosity and melting point increase.

The use of hydrogenated oils in foods has never been completely satisfactory. Because the center arm of the triglyceride is shielded somewhat by the end triglycerides, most of the hydrogenation occurs on the end triglycerides. This makes the resulting fat more brittle. A margarine made from tropical oils, which are naturally more saturated, will be more plastic (more "spreadable") than a margarine made from hydrogenated soy oil. (In the U.S., the USDA Standard of Identity for a product labeled as vegetable oil margarine specifies that only canola, safflower, sunflower, corn, soybean, or peanut oil may be used.[1] Products not labeled vegetable oil margarine do not have that restriction.) In addition, partial hydrogenation results in the formation of trans fats, which have increasingly been viewed as unhealthful since the 1970s.

Although many different parts of plants may yield oil,[2] in actual commercial practice oil is extracted primarily from the seeds of oilseed plants.

here is a search link if you would like to look at more informations ?
http://search.yahoo.com/search?search=vegetable+oil+&ei=UTF-8&fr=ks-ans&ico-yahoo-search-value=http%3A%2F%2Frds.yahoo.com%2F_ylt%3DAjXdkzxg1Pl8CafJ_w6KIXQazKIX%2FSIG%3D111gjvvgj%2F*-http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fsearch&ico-wikipedia-search-value=http%3A%2F%2Frds.yahoo.com%2F_ylt%3DArOGJJlpJsy9bxTMvx8Ebu0azKIX%2FSIG%3D11ia1qo58%2F**http%253a%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpecial%253aSearch&p=vegetable+oil+

Answer 3

All fruits are fruit and vegetables. A "vegetable" is a plant, any part of which can be used for food.

Answer 4

In the superstore, fruits are usually picked out far too soon. Some are rocks, many are bad. Some of the fresh vegetables are generally right (zucchini, onions, garlic, lettuce, greens, and a few others) so I'd have to go with vegetables.