If you’ve bought vegetable oil at the grocery store, there’s a chance it could be soybean oil. Most soybean oil sold in grocery stores is labeled as vegetable oil, and soybean oil comes with benefits such as a heart-healthy fat profile, which may have the ability to support bone health and skin health.
Soybeans are made up of two components: soybean meal and soybean oil. The bean is separated into meal and oil when it’s crushed, with oil making up about 19% of the bean and 70% being meal including protein and nutrients. Soybean meal is mostly used for animal feed — 97% of U.S. soybean meal goes to feeding livestock and fish across the globe — but is also used for human food and nonfood uses. Soybean oil is also found in both food and nonfood uses. A versatile, renewable, sustainable oil, U.S. Soy provides solutions for many needs in the oil space — even when it comes to human heart-health.
A Choice to Heart Health
Taking care of your heart is vital to good health, and eating right is part of keeping your heart healthy. It’s important to be up-to-date on food recommendations so you know what healthy options are. Soybean oil carries the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) heart health claim confirming it may be able to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. The claim is based on the ability of soybean oil to lower blood cholesterol levels.
In addition, soybean oil is predominantly alpha-linoleic acid omega-3s, which may affect cardiovascular health and may reduce blood pressure. Increasing your intake of omega-3 fatty acids can also help reduce inflammation. This is important because inflammation is thought to be linked to the development of chronic conditions such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
Supporting Bone Health
Your bones provide your body with structure and movement and protect your organs. In addition, bones store minerals such as calcium and phosphorus and have the ability to release those minerals when your body needs them. Bone health is significant. So, eating right to give your bones the nutrients they need is critical for proper functions.
Vitamin K is one of those nutrients vital to bone health, and just 1 tablespoon of soybean oil contains about 20% of the recommended Daily Value (DV) in a single serving. This vitamin is important in regulating bone metabolism and necessary for making proteins that are crucial for maintaining bone mass.
Protecting Skin Health
Vitamin E is an antioxidant nutrient that helps protect body cells and supports healthy skin, and this vitamin is found in soybean oil. Vitamin E is also important for proper nervous system function and protection. Furthermore, studies show that vitamin E may protect against skin damage and help treat certain skin conditions, such as acne and atopic dermatitis.
Soybean Oil Innovation
While soybean oil is a useful product with many benefits, the soybean industry works to find ways to make it even better. One of these is high oleic soybean oil, which has an improved fat profile and is also heart healthy. High oleic soybean oil is the latest innovation from the soy checkoff and United Soybean Board and industry partners.
High oleic soybean oil contains lower saturated fat and three times the amount of beneficial monounsaturated fatty acids, compared to many conventional vegetable oils, which benefit heart health when consumed according to FDA guidelines, which recommend 1 ½ tablespoons of oleic containing oil per day .
Oils high in oleic acid, including high oleic soybean oil, have an FDA qualified health claim for their relationship to a reduced risk of coronary heart disease when replacing oils higher in saturated fats.
Benefits of Soybean Oil Consumption
While it is possible to be allergic to soy, approximately three out of 1,000 adults, or 0.3%, are allergic to soy protein. Highly refined soybean oil does not cause allergic reactions in soy-allergic individuals because soybean oil does not contain protein. Because of this, the FDA does not require soybean oil to be labeled as an allergen.
In addition, the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology estimates that only 0.4% of children are allergic to soy protein – and of those, an estimated 70% will outgrow their allergy by age 10.
Soybean oil is also easy to find and add to your diet. It can be used as a cooking oil, mixed into a marinade, stirred into a salad dressing and much more. The possibilities for using U.S. Soy oil are as plentiful as the benefits.
