Sunflower oil processing from crude to salad oil

World-wide use of sunflower oil is second only to soybean oil. Interest in domestic use as a premium salad oil is very recent. The high ratio of polyunsaturated-to-saturated fatty acids makes sunflower oil a premium salad oil. Sunflower oil, however, contains a small amount of high melting wax which must be removed to avoid settling problems. It is possible to produce a brilliant, dewaxed, deodorized sunflower oil with over a 100-hr cold test at 0 C. This quality oil can be produced by conventional caustic refining, dewaxing, bleaching and deodorization. A quality finished oil may also be produced by dewaxing and steam refining. This paper reviews various methods for processing sunflower oil from the crude state through the finished, dewaxed, deodorized salad oil. Presented at the ISF/AOCS Meeting, New York, April, 1980.