Abstract (EN):
The fatty acid composition of 17 brands of spreadable fats available in the Portuguese market was determined by capillary gas liquid chromatography as fatty acid methyl esters on a highly polar cyanopropylpolysiloxane liquid phase column. The total saturated fatty acids ranged from 23.9 to 52.6% with palmitic acid being 11.9-37.7% and stearic acid 4.0-12.3%. A wide range in the polyunsaturated fatty acids levels was noted 10.8-57.4%) with linoleic acid ranging from 10.6 to 54.0% and linolenic acid from 0.1 to 5.2%. Oleic acid levels ranged from 18.2 to 41.4%. Concerning total trans fatty acids. the mean level was 2.6%, ranging from 0.2 to 9.0%. The most frequent occurrence of trans fatty acids content in spreadable fats was in the 0.2-0.5% range (9 of the 17 brands were in this range and only 1 brand contained trans fatty acids levels higher than 6.0%.
Language:
English
Type (Professor's evaluation):
Scientific
No. of pages:
4