Butter fatty acid composition

There are physical—chemical differences between fats of the same fatty acid composition, depending on the placement of the fatty acids. For example, cocoa butter and mutton tallow share the same fatty acid composition, but fatty acid placement on the glycerin backbone yields products of very different physical properties. 

Table 14. Fatty Acid Composition of Raw Cocoa Beans and Cocoa Butter ...

Table 4.7. Fatty Acid Composition of Butter Oil as Determined by GLC-Mass Spectrometry (Weight Percent) of Total Methyl Esters...

Hansen, R. P. and Shorland, F. B. 1962, Seasonal variations in fatty acid composition of New Zealand butter fat. Biochem. J. 52, 207-216. 

Parodi, P. W. 1970. Fatty acid composition of Australian butter and milk fats. Aust. J. Dairy Technol. 25, 200-205. 

Stearic acid is a long chain SFA present, to varying degrees, in virtually all edible fats and oils. Table IV provides the fatty acid composition of fats and oils commonly consumed by humans. The most abundant food sources of stearic acid in the American diet are beef fat and cocoa butter (chocolate). Cocoa butter is valued by chocolate manufacturers because it remains solid at room temperature but dissolves quickly at body temperature, a unique characteristic of chocolate that is due largely to stearic acid. During the last few decades as cocoa butter prices and supplies have fluctuated, food companies began looking for alternative oils that could provide equivalent amounts of stearic acid in order to retain the desirable physical characteristics. Several... 

Materials Reagents and authentic compounds for use as standards were purchased in the highest available purity. Butteroil was prepared from unsalted butter by centrifugation at 60 C. Four butteroil fractions of different fatty acid composition, obtained by crystallization at 19 C and 29 C (10), were provided by the Dairy Bureau of Canada. 

Little information has been published on the climatic and geographical factors affecting the composition of CBA fats. It can be assumed, however, that components which vary in cocoa butter with location, etc., also change in other confectionery fats, although these effects are nullified somewhat by refining and fractionation. Comprehensive details of the acylglycerol and fatty acid composition of illipe butters from several Shorea species are presented with description of cultivation and harvesting in Blicher-Mathiesen (1994) and some details of the cultivation and uses of shea have been described by Ruiz Mendez and Huesa Lope (1991). 

Fatty acid determination has not often been applied to cocoa butter authenticity in isolation. Wong Soon (1991) showed the addition of illipe to cocoa butter in a model system by measuring the fatty acid composition of mixtures but the change in composition did not reflect the level of addition of illipe. Lipp el al. (2001) found differences in the 08 2 content between South American, African and Asian butters. However, determination of fatty acid profiles should be regarded as an important factor to consider, particularly as part of multivariate analytical schemes. 

Neri, A., Simonetti, M.S., Cossignani, L. and Damiani, P. (1998) Identification of cocoabutter equivalents added to cocoa butter-I. An approach by fatty acid composition of the triacylglycerol sub-fractions separated by Ag+-HPLC. Z. Lebensm. Unters. Forsch. A., 206(6), 387-392. 

Table 1.6. Fatty acid composition of French butters collected at different periods...

Identification Cocoa Butter Substitute exhibits the following typical composition profile of fatty acids determined as directed under Fatty Acid Composition, Appendix VII ... 

Unlike processed vegetable fat the composition of butter can only be altered by fractionation (typical fatty acid compositions of milk fats are given in Tables 3.5 and 3.6). It is possible to fractionate butter by a number of methods, either using solvents (such as acetone or alcohol) or by vacuum distillation or slow crystallisation. Solvent fractionation can be used to produce well defined fractions but has certain disadvantages ... 

The above list does not include cocoa butter nor minor oils such as rice bran oil or safflower oil. Nor does it distinguish between oils from a common botanical source with a modified fatty acid composition, such as canola oil and high-erucic rape seed oil, linseed oil and linola, or the various types of sunflower oil. 

Shea (Butyrospermum parkii, shea butter, karite butter). This fat comes from trees grown mainly in West Africa and contains an unusually high level of unsapo-nifiable material ( 11%), including polyisoprene hydrocarbons. It is rich in stearic acid, but its fatty acid composition varies with its geographical source. It contains palmitic (4—8%), stearic (23-58%), oleic (33-68%), and hnoleic acid (4—8%). It can be fractionated to give a stearin (POP 1%, POSt 8%, and StOSt 68%), which can be used as a cocoa butter equivalent (79, 122-124). It is one of the six permitted fats (palm oil, iUipe butter, kokum butter, sal fat, shea butter, and mango kernel fat), which, in some countries at least, can partially replace cocoa butter in chocolate (86). 

Few compilations of the extensive fatty acid distributions in butter fat have been made since Iverson et al. (17) reported quantitative data on 82 fatty acids that were detected by means of urea fractionation and gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) (Table 6). Table 7 provides the fatty acid composition of bovine milk lipids. 

There is a pronounced seasonal change in the fatty acid composition of butter fat. It is normally several iodine number units higher in the summer than in the winter, with corresponding variation in the relative proportions of unsaturated... 

Smoke Point, Fiash Point, and Fire Point The smoke point, flash point, and fire point of an oil are relevant parameters in deep-fat frying processes. The fatty acid composition of the oil is not relevant (unless the oil has short-chain fatty acids, as is the case of butter or coconut oil). The most important effect is generally that of free fatty acids (FFA) in the oil. The following values have been reported for fully refined sunflower oil (with 0.10% free fatty acids) smoke point = 209°C flash point = 316°C fire point = 341°C (5). 

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