ABSTRACT
Preharvest factors of field and frost damage to soybean plants and post-harvest factors of handling, transportation, and storage greatly affect the quality of the extracted oil. Export shipments of soybeans were sampled at ports of embarkation and at destination ports. Soybean oil has a tremendous nutritional impact on the American diet. It supplies almost 60 percent of the visible fats consumed in the United States, with partially hydrogenated soybean oil contributing about two-thirds of this total. Both soybean oil and partially hydrogenated soybean oil are well absorbed and are good sources of both Vitamin E and the polyunsaturated essential fatty acid, linoleic acid. The utilization of soybean oil as a raw material for the manufacture of industrial chemicals depends primarily upon its price relationship to other fats and oils having similar physical/chemical properties as well as the idiosyncrasies of its fatty acid constituents.
