Tackling the Edible Oil Famine

TALK of the oil crisis, and everyone thinks of the oil that is pumped from under the land or the sea. Yet another crisis, to do with oil of a different sort, is well upon us. This has to do with edible oil, the kind that is eaten in the form of raw or refined cooking oil, vanaspati, butter and ghee. Of these butter and ghee are solid fats, which come from milk and therefore stand in a class apart. Edible oils in India are therefore mostly vegetable oils (or their hydrogenated products) derived from various oilseeds, From being exporters of oilseeds till 1958 and of oils till seven years later, we are today desperately seeking oils both for table use, and for industrial utilisation such as in making soaps.