Foods fats and oils

W. H. Meyer, Food Fats and Oils, Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils, Washington, D.C., 1982, 22 pp. 

The majority of fatty acids in tissues are combined with other molecules. In food fats and oils, fatty acids are esterified to molecules of glycerol (propane-1,2,3-triol). Figure 11.3 shows how three fatty acids can combine with a single... 

Figure 6 is an extensive list of the fatty acids typical of the triacylglycerols of fish oils and includes one baleen whale oil. These were all of interest to industrial and food fats and oils companies two decades ago (1), but even later were of limited interest in human nutrition (26). For practical purposes, marine oils can be defined by 12 fatty acids that add to about 90% of the array of peaks in Figure 5 and determine the properties of a given oil. These are (in a shorthand giving the chain-length. 

There is a substantial market for cold-pressed peanut, sesame, safflower, and sunflower oils in many countries. In the United States, the use of such unprocessed oils has become more popular in recent years because of nutritional considerations and an interest in less processed foods. However, there are no reliable data available for the quantities of such oils consumed. Consumption of all types of food fats and oils has been gradually increasing all over the world. Fats and oils consumed as part of foods can be conveniently divided into two broad categories visible fats that are used in the preparation of foods and invisible fats that are present in the food naturally. Per capita consumption of visible fats in the United States grew from 104.9 kg (47.71b) in 1965 to 144.5 kg (65.71b) in 1992, and to 149.6 kg (68.01b) in 2002 (13). 

Fats play an important role in nutrition. Occuring naturally in foods fats and oils are a concentrated form of energy for the body. As well as storing energy in the body, fats are used to insulate body tissues and help transport fat soluble vitamins throughout the blood. An important role of fats is in food preparation, they enhance food flavor, add texture, make baked products tender, and conduct heat during cooking. 

Fatty acids (FA) are the main constituents of food fats and oils as well as of depot fats in man and animals. Dietary fats contain practically no free FA instead, these are present in the form of TAG. 

Hammond, E.G. 2000a. Genetic alteration of food fats and oils, in Fatty Acids and Their Health Implications, Chow, Ch.K., Ed., New York Marcel Dekker, 357-374. 

Fig. 1. Canadian apparent consumption of food fats and oils (Hassan and Karamchandani, 1977, 1980 Statistics Canada, 1979 1980 figures preliminary).

Table III shows the fat supplied by each food group in the 1971 food supply together with the weighted mean fat intake for the same food groups from the 1970-1972 Nutrition Canada Survey. The differences between these two sets of data provide the opportunity to identify the sources of fat waste. For example, it is evident that 27.9 g (44%) of the fat supplied by the meat group was wasted. As the total waste of fat was 45.7 g, the balance (17.8 g) must be accounted for from the products of food fats and oils. Table IV summarizes such an accounting.

Of the 59.2 g of food fats and oils in the 1971 food supply, 22.8 g appear to have been consumed in prepared foods this amount represented the increase in fat intake from that available in cereals, fruits, and vegetables, and other" foods such as mixed dishes (Tables III and IV). Food fats and oils... 

Estimated Waste of Food Fats and Oils (1970-1972)" (g/person/day)... 

Fig. 4. Average daily intake of food fats and oils by physiological group and income index A = lowest income (n = 1515) B = low income (n = 3034) C = all others (n = 7729). Adapted from Myres and Kroetsch (1978).

Reeves, JB Weihrauch, JL. Composition of Foods Fats and Oils. Agriculture handbook 8-4 Consumer and Food Economics Institute. Washington DC U.S. Dept, of Agriculture, Science and Education Administration 1979 4. Available from OCLC 5301713,... 

US Department of Agriculture, Human Nutrition Information Service (1979) Composition of foods fats and oils raws, processed, prepared. Agric. Handb. No. 8-4, 142 pp. 

In the preparation of foods, fats and oils modify product texture, carry flavors, improve mouthfeel, provide a sensation of product richness, and induce satiety. They are used in many other commercial applications, including soaps and detergents, plastics and protective coatings, printing inks, and feeds for domesticated animals, and as carriers of pesticides for aerial spraying, for control of grain dust, and as feedstocks for chemical manufacturing processes. 

Vitamin E, a natural lipophilic antioxidant and radical scavenger, is a fat-soluble vitamin found in many foods, fats, and oils. Vitamin E is used to refer to a group of fat-soluble compounds that include both tocopherols and tocotrienols. For industrial processes, a-tocopherol is produced on a large scale as a mixture of all eight possible stereoisomers. 

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