ABSTRACT
Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) is currently the most prominent of the world’s major oilseed crops. The versatility of soy oil enables its leading role in edible vegetable oils, baking and frying fats, and a diverse array of industrial oil products, including pharmaceuticals, inks, dyes, lubricants, and bio-based fuels. Advances in the knowledge of soybean lipid metabolism and biological mechanisms have stimulated great interest in genetic improvement of soybean oil quality. United States oilseed processors and food manufacturers currently face a pressing challenge to produce quality products with lower levels of trans isomers of unsaturated fatty acids and lower levels of saturated fats. These two challenges affect approximately 96% of the domestic soybean oil market-44% of domestic consumption is in liquid soy oil applications such as cooking oils, and 52% of domestic applications include margarine, shortening, and frying fats (1).
