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| Olive oil is a favorite in the West. |
You are familiar with odors from plants‚ the sweet fragrance of roses, the spicy odor of geranium leaves, and the strong odor of onions. Many of these plant odors are caused by oils in the plants, and some of these oils are important sources of foods.
Throughout history all over the world vegetable oils have been removed from plants to serve in many ways. Many of the oils are important foods: for example, the oils that are used for cooking, for salad and vegetable dressings, and for packing canned fish. Some vegetable oils serve as medicines; many children know from experience the oil that comes from the castor bean. Some oils, including the few that cannot be eaten, are used in making soap, paint, perfume, fuel, and candles.
The growing plant manufactures extra food, and some of this is stored as fats and oils. Oils are found in most parts of most plants, but certain fruits and seeds contain especially large amounts. Some of the world's most popular oils are from the seeds of the poppy, soybeans, corn, cotton, peanuts, coconuts, and olives.
An old and crude method of removing oil from plants is to pile the parts containing the oils in the sun. The heat causes the oils to separate and run off. This method is still used in some parts of the world.
In the western world the best-known and oldest vegetable oil is olive oil. In ancient times the olive was so important in the areas around the Mediterranean Sea that the olive branch became the symbol of peace and plenty. For many people olive oil still takes the place of butter and animal fats, as in Spain and Italy, which produce more olives than all the rest of the world.
The coconut palm tree of the tropics has an almost endless number of uses. Copra, the dried coconut meat, is rich in oil. Undoubtedly as long as human beings have lived where the coconut palm grows, the oil has been extracted and used for food and body oils. In world commerce, coconut oil is used chiefly in manufacturing soap and margarine.
Just as olive oil in the Mediterranean regions and coconut oil in the tropics are staple articles of diet, so are other vegetable oils elsewhere. Examples are soybean oil in Manchuria, palm oil in West Africa, and babassu oil in the jungles of Brazil.
In the United States by far the largest source of vegetable oils is the cotton plant. Years ago seeds removed from the raw cotton were piled up in dumps until they became a health menace and laws had to be passed to have them destroyed. After a method was developed for extracting the oil from the seeds more and more uses were found for it, until now enough is made to supply over ten pounds of oil a year to every man, woman, and child in the country. The meal remaining after the oil is removed from the seeds is an important food for livestock. From peanuts, too, comes a useful oil. Peanut oil is used in shortening and other foods as well as for lubricating everything from fine watches to heavy tractor motors.
We no longer have to travel around the world to see these oil-giving plants. Most of them have been introduced and are now grown in the United States.
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