ABSTRACT
Fats and oils, which form a vital component of many cell constituents and an important source of energy, are one of the five essential ingredients of human diet, the others being protein, carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins. ¢ey act as a carrier of fat-soluble vitamins and contribute significantly as functional ingredients toward improving the sensory characteristics of several processed food products. Oils and fats are mainly derived from plant and animal sources. Although large numbers of animals are available as a source of fat and oils, they are not preferred over plant sources. Hence, oil production, for both edible and industrial usage depends mainly on vegetable oil seed production, and about 71% of the edible oils/fats are derived from plant sources. Oilseeds are those crops in which energy is stored mainly in the form of oil. Depending upon the use of oil, oilseeds can be classified into seeds that contain edible vegetable oil, for example, soybean, peanut, cottonseed, rapeseed, sunflower, safflower, and sesame, and seeds that contain nonedible oils, for example, castor beans. However, among these soybean, cottonseed, groundnut (unshelled), rapeseed, sunflower, copra, palm kernel, sesame, linseed, castor, and safflower are considered as major oilseeds in the world. ¢ere are 40 different oilseeds whose oil can be used for human consumption. However, only a small number of such crops are of significance in the worlds edible/nonedible oil supply. Further, some oil crops such as groundnut (peanut) can be used directly as food, whereas others are exclusively processed to obtain fat or oil and cake or meal (Hatje 1989).
