Practical considerations in commercial utilization of oilseeds

Abstract

In the past 40 years oilseeds have gained a dominant position in the U.S. agriculture. Soybeans have made more rapid progress in the feed and food industries than other oilseeds because of the low cost in their production, easy adaptability to solvent processing, and importance to the feed and food industries. The foreign markets have been a great asset to the soybean industry. However, each of the other oilseeds is finding its special place in the industry through modification of the seed by plant breeding, the development of new techniques in oil mill processing and other technical modifications. Even geographical location of a crop can be a deciding factor in the economics of successful operation. Production and processing of oilseeds in other countries often presents economic and food acceptance problems that are entirely different than those in the U.S. Both the favorable and unfavorable factors involved in production, composition, processing and conversion of the protein concentrates into acceptable foods are discussed. The recent oilseed research and development which holds promise for increasing utilization of oilseed in foods is reviewed. This includes progress in the breeding of high protein soybeans, new centrifugal techniques for reducing the gossypol in cottonseed meal, progress in the development and production of glandless cottonseed, processing new varieties of sunflower seed, the potential for new and improved oil solvents, the advantages of extrusion processing of oilseed meals, and other techniques which might be expected to improve the color, flavor, texture and other properties of oilseed proteins for foods.