New, Healthier Soybean Oil Developed at ISU

Iowa State University, Ames, has announced test quantities of a new soybean oil that contains twice the amount of oleic acid found in conventional soybean oil and only 1% linolenic acid. The oil is designed for food products, such as cereal and energy bars, powdered cheese sauces and nondairy creamers, that require a greater degree of stability than previously provided by unhydrogenated soybean oils.

The new oil was developed from research conducted in the university's agronomy department by a soybean breeding team led by Walter Fehr, a Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture. ISU obtained a soybean line with about 50%

oleic acid, compared with about 28% in conventional soybeans, from Saga University, Japan. This conventionally bred soybean could not be grown in Iowa due to slow maturation, and it also contained too high a level of linolenic acid to avoid hydrogenation. The ISU research team wanted to use conventional breeding to transfer the genes controlling the higher-oleic-acid trait into soybeans with 1% linolenic acid that are grown commercially in the Midwest.

"Our 1% linolenic acid oil does not require hydrogenation and has been adopted by the food industry in a range of products," Fehr says. "We wanted to find out if it would be possible to make the 1% linolenic acid oil even more useful by increasing its content of oleic acid, the same monounsaturated fatty acid found in olive oil. We were not sure whether we could combine the two traits in a variety because it had never been done before. The results were better than we had anticipated. The oleic acid of the soybeans was greater than 50%, and the linolenic acid was only 1%."

The soybeans were developed with funding from U.S. soybean farmers through the Iowa Soybean Association and United Soybean Board. They were processed during June into refined oil and packaged for distribution to the food industry.

Fehr says that evaluations by the food industry will be extremely important for assessing the new oil. "We know that the 1% linolenic acid oil performs very well. The tests by the food industry will determine if elevating the oleic acid has made the oil even better. If the results are positive, soybean breeders will develop varieties with the two traits that can be grown by farmers to expand the market for their crop," he says.

Companies can obtain free samples of the new oil for evaluation by contacting Fehr at [email protected].