chemical engineer types...help

rangermonroe

rangermonroe

Member
We are having a discussion here at the fire station regarding oils...corn, olive peanut, orange..etc.
How is it oil and not juice. If I squeeze an orange, it is orange juice. If I squeeze an olive its oil. When I squeeze a peice of corn between my teeth, it's juicy..not oily.
But wesson is corn oil. Whats the difference?
 
broomer5

broomer5

Active Member
The way I see it .....
When you press an olive, mash corn or squeeze an orange, you get a liquid.
Some of the liquid is a water based liquid.
Some of the liquid is fats or oils.
For it to be an oil it must be made up of fatty acids.
These fatty acids are long hydrocarbon chains and can chemically form triglycerides or fats.
Fats and oils are build different than juice. You've heard about saturated, unsaturated, polyunsaturated oils. This just has to do with how many and where the hydrogens are located in the long fatty acid chains.
Seeds, nuts, grains, veggies and some fruits contain these fatty acid chains/oils.
Pressing or squeezing them gets them out into a liquid state - but normally there is more processing involved to make them a final product ( like olive oil or corn oil or whatever ).
That's about all I can say on this :)
 
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