The digestibility of crude, refined and hydrogenated cottonseed oil.

During recent years considerable interest has been evinced in India in the utilization
of cotton seed oil for edible purposes. Crude cottonseed oil, as obtained
by expressing steamed cottonseed kernels, has a dark brown colour and also
contains the toxic pigment gossypol. Consequently, unlike the commoner
edible oils, viz. groundnut, cocoanut and gingelly oils, cottonseed oil cannot be
consumed without preliminary refining. In addition to its use as a salad oil,
cottonseed oil is also being hydrogenated and used in the preparation of shortening
and margarine (1). Although a large amount of work has been done on the
digestibility and nutritive value of a wide variety of edible oils (2-5) little
information is available concerning crude, refined and hydrogenated cottonseed
oil. The present paper deals with studies on the digestibility of these fats as
compared with refined groundnut oil and cow's ghee.