It is hard to imagine cooking without oil. From bharta to fish, meat, vegetables, polao, tehari and biryani, oil is a key ingredient in many tasty dishes. At first, mustard oil was the most used oil in cooking, made in the traditional ghani press. Now new technology has arrived, and machines crush mustard seed into oil in an instant.

Over time, oil from soybean, olive, rice bran and sunflower has joined mustard oil. But amid so many oils, soybean oil is still ahead. Mustard oil, used in mothers' kitchens since ancient times, is still overshadowed by soybean oil today. Soybean oil came into use in kitchens from the 1980s. It is much cheaper than mustard oil, almost half the price, and that is one big reason for its dominance in homes today.

Many oils have tried to take a share of soybean oil's popularity. At times, when soybean oil prices were high, demand for palm oil rose, but it never became a real threat or a substitute for soybean oil. Sellers acknowledge soybean oil's dominance too: buyers now ask for soybean oil first.

Apart from mustard, soybean and rice bran oil, two other oils are sold on the edible oil market, though in very limited quantities. Traders import sunflower oil and olive oil from abroad, but they are expensive. Being out of reach of ordinary buyers, they have not yet created much demand in Bangladesh.

Besides being cheap, soybean oil has some good qualities. It is not much harmed by normal heat, though it is best not to heat it for a long time for frying. Soybean is a popular source of plant protein around the world, and many products are made from it. It is also a good source of amino acids, which are essential for the human body.

Source: Kaler Kantho. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.