What is vegetable oil used for?

Answer 1

Culinary uses-

Many vegetable oils are consumed directly, or used directly as ingredients in food - a role that they share with some animal fats, including butter and ghee. The oils serve a number of purposes in this role:

Texture - oils can serve to make other ingredients stick together less.
Flavor - while less-flavorful oils command premium prices, oils such as olive oil or almond oil may be chosen specifically for the flavor they impart.
Flavor base - oils can also "carry" the flavors of other ingredients, since many flavors are present in chemicals that are soluble in oil.
Secondly, oils can be heated, and used to cook other foods. Oils that are suitable for this purpose must have a high flash point. Such oils include the major cooking oils - canola, sunflower oil, safflower oil, peanut oil, linseed oil etc. Some oils, including rice bran oil, are particularly valued in Asian cultures for high temperature cooking, because of their unusually high flash point.

Hydrogenated oils-

Triglyceride-based vegetable fats and oils can be transformed through partial or complete hydrogenation into 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 naturally more saturated tropical oils will be more plastic (more "spreadable") than a margarine made from hydrogenated soy oil. In addition, partial hydrogenation results in the formation of trans fats, which have increasingly been viewed as unhealthy since the 1970s.

(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.[3] Products not labeled vegetable oil margarine do not have that restriction.)

Industrial uses-

-Vegetable oils are used as an ingredient or component in many manufactured products.
-Many vegetable oils are used to make soaps, skin products, perfumes and other personal care and cosmetic products.
-Some oils are particularly suitable as drying agents, and are used in making paints and other wood treatment products. Dammar oil, for example, is used almost exclusively in treating the hulls of wooden boats.
-Vegetable oils are increasingly being used in the electrical industry as insulators as vegetable oils are non-toxic to the environment, biodegradable if spilled and have high flash and fire points. However, vegetable oils have issues with chemical stability (there has to be a tradeoff with biodegradability), so they are generally used in systems where they are not exposed to oxygen and are more expensive than crude oil distillate. Three examples are Midel 7131 by M & I materials, FR3 by Cooper Power and Biotemp by ABB. Midel 7131 is a synthetic oil, manufactured by an alcohol plus acid reaction.
-Vegetable oil is being used to produce bio-degradable hydraulic fluid.
-Common vegetable oil has also been used experimentally as a cooling agent in PCs.
-One limiting factor in industrial uses of vegetable oils is that all such oils eventually chemically decompose turning rancid. Oils that are more stable, such as Ben oil or mineral oil, are preferred for some industrial uses.

-Vegetable-based oils, like Castor oil, have been used as lubricants for thousands of years prior to the discovery of crude oil and its petroleum-based derviatives (mineral oils, etc.). Castor oil is still one of the best natural lubricants used today because it's non-toxic and quickly biodegrades; whereas, petroleum-based oils are potential health hazards, and take a very long time to biodegrade, thus can damage the environment when concentrated.

Fuel-

Vegetable oils are also the basis of biodiesel, which can be used like conventional diesel, and SVO (straight vegetable oil), which can be used in specially prepared vehicle engines.

Extraction-

The "modern" way of processing vegetable oil is by chemical extraction, using solvent extracts, which produces higher yields and is quicker and less expensive. The most common solvent is petroleum-derived hexane. This technique is used for most of the "newer" industrial oils such as soybean and corn oils.

Another way is physical extraction, which does not use solvent extracts. It is made the "traditional" way using several different types of mechanical extraction.[7] This method is typically used to produce the more traditional oils (e.g., olive), and it is preferred by most "health-food" customers in the USA and in Europe. Expeller-pressed extraction is one type, and there are two other types that are both oil presses: the screw press and the ram press. Oil seed presses are commonly used in developing countries, among people for whom other extraction methods would be prohibitively expensive..

Answer 2

What a silly little stupid question......what do u think it is used for...!!! Obviously cooking. Infact cooking anything, not just vegetables.....just like most other oils available in the market. What food have you eaten and grown up so far & which oil was it cooked in......check with your mom....!!

Answer 3

It's main use is for cooking, many receipes require vegetable, canola or other type oil(s). It is also very handy for protecting (seasoning) cast iron cooking pans/skillets and implements, and for coating the cutting edges of can openers. There are undoubtedly many more uses both culinary and otherwise.

Answer 4

vegetable oil is used for cooking

Answer 5

Frying and used in recipes in place of butter at times.

Answer 6

cooking and driving, hopefully (in later days invention)...to lower one's cholestrol

Answer 7

cooking and driving, hopefully (in later days invention)...to lower one's cholestrol

Answer 8

i just use it to grease my pans so that food wont stick in them. ^_^

Answer 9

deep frying.

Answer 10

COOKIING i guess.