Crude soybean oil is a vegetable oil that is extracted from the seeds of the soybean plant (Glycine max). It is widely used as a cooking oil and is the second most consumed vegetable oil. To produce it, soybeans are cracked, adjusted for moisture content, heated, rolled into flakes, and solvent-extracted with hexanes. The resulting oil can then be refined and blended for various applications, or sometimes hydrogenated. Crude soybean oil contains esters and only trace amounts of fatty carboxylic acids. It's also used as a base for printing inks and oil paints due to its drying oil properties.