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Comment by admn2 | Hacker News Reader

I was at Target in the sauce aisle and I couldn't believe how literally every sauce I picked up had Soybean oil as the first ingredient.

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What is surprising about that? They use what's cheapest.

Yeah, more just surprised that Soybean specifically so ubiquitous. Felt like last time I looked it was a range of weird oil name (corn oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, etc.) Just astonishing how the huge CPG conglomerates have engineered such highly processed food all in the name of price efficiency. I love brands like Primal Kitchen and how many others like it gain popularity as they're one of the few brands whose ingredients are just normal and easily identifiable.

US produces about 1/3 of worldwide soy, I think production is only second to corn. So if nothing else, it's available.

IIRC soybeans help add nitrogen back to the soil and are highly subsidized.

According to https://www.ilsoyadvisor.com/on-farm/ilsoyadvisor/nitrogen-s..., they "fix" nitrogen so require less than other crops, but it's still a net negative.

I think it's revelatory that the supply side finds some byproduct (hey we have all these seeds from cotton, can we do anything with them) and then they force a product from it after the fact, and now we are all worse for it. The market is fake.

Ran into that problem yesterday at the grocery store. I wanted to buy horseradish sauce but every single product offered had soybean oil as a primary ingredient, often the first ingredient. Thankfully horseradish root can still be obtained for making sauce at home.

Horseradish sauce is basically horseradish in mayonnaise, and mayo is made with soybean oil.

Gold's plain "prepared" horseradish is ubiquitous around here, and it only contains horseradish, vinegar, and salt.

https://www.goldshorseradish.com/golds-prepared-horseradish

not just every sauce. But salad dressings, marinades, processed crackers/cookies, cereals, granola, most bread, most tortilla shell (soft and hard).

Hell - most "dried fruit" aside from raisins, like blueberries, dried cranberries, and so forth, are all swimming in it. Eating those "healthy" kale chips, beet chips, coconut chips? Check how much added sugar and how much omega6 ridden oils they use

Sardines are packed in soybean oil.

If it's not soybean oils, then it's cottonseed, grapseseed, canola, corn oil, or any other number of oils that we have as larger industrial byproducts.

I've been looking for years for beef jerky that is less than 10% sugar. It doesn't appear to exist.

It absolutely does, though probably not by the big brands at gas stations or convenience stores.

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