Rape is one of the largest cultivated oil crops in the world. The latest data from abroad shows that rapeseed oil is rich in plant sterols. The development of plant sterols with rapeseed oil will become a vibrant industry in the next five years.

 Plant sterols are a mixture of ingredients, which include stigmasterol, sitosterol, vegetable oil sterol, and so on. In recent years, foreign researchers have found that plant sterols from rapeseed oil or soybean oil is an excellent natural health care product. It can be used to prevent cardiovascular diseases that are very dangerous to humans, including arteriosclerosis, coronary heart disease, stroke and myocardial infarction. Because plant sterols are non-toxic and harmless, they can be directly added to the food (or beverage) as a new type of nutritional and health food additive to enhance the nutritional value of the product.

 In recent years, some food manufacturers in western countries have developed a series of health food containing plant sterol, including wheat cream (margarine), salad sauce, yogurt, chewing gum, biscuits, drinks and a variety of other health food containing plant sterol. After the product was launched, it was quite popular with local consumers.

It is understood that there are only two raw materials used for the production of phytosterols in western countries, one is directly extracted from vegetable oil such as rapeseed oil or soybean oil, the other is extracted from processed pine oil and other wood oil. Currently, the total production of plant sterols is estimated to be around 5000 tons. Plant sterols from natural vegetable oils account for about 90% and wood oil sterols for about 10%. The biggest use of plant sterols is as a healthy food additive to lower cholesterol and blood lipid. It can be predicted that as more and more people understand and accept the new health care concept of preventing hyperlipidemia, the production and sales volume of plant sterols in the global market will increase exponentially in the next five years. The prospect of developing this product is attractive.