Fats and Oils Handbook (Nahrungsfette und Öle)

Michael Bockisch

• Publisher: Academic Press and AOCS Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780128043554
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Food Science
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Fats and Oils Handbook (Nahrungsfette und Öle) acknowledges the importance of fats and oils and surveys today's state-of-the-art technology. To pursue food technology without knowing the raw material would mean working in a vacuum. This book describes the raw materials predominantly employed and the spectrum of processes used today. It is the updated and revised English version of Nahrungsfette und Ole, originally printed in German. It contains 283 tables, 647+ figures, and over 850 references. "If you can afford only one book on oils and fats, their composition, processing and use, then this should probably be the one!"

• Presents details on the composition, chemistry, and processes of the major fats and oils used today
• Includes hundreds of illustrations and tables, making the concepts easier to read and grasp
• Acknowledges the importance of fats and oils offers details on relevant technologies

Chapter 1

The Importance of Fats

The importance of fats for humans, animals and plants lies in their high content of energy, which permits the greatest possible storage of energy in the smallest possible amount of food substance. In addition, fats allow humans and animals to consume fat-soluble vitamins and provide them with essential fatty acids, that is, those indispensable fatty acids that their bodies are unable to synthesize themselves.

Fats are omnipresent in nature, although in the most diverse quantities. In the human body, they play a decisive role as well, beginning with the nutrition of the infant with breast milk. During the first 5 d, breast milk contains an average of 29.5% fat; from d 6 through 10, the amount is 35.2% and later 45.4% (Macy 1949). In the course of life, a human living in the industrial world satisfies an average of >40% of energy demand with fat. Metabolized in the human body, fats yield 38 kj/g of energy (9 kcal/g). In this exothermic reaction, ∼2000 mL of oxygen per gram of fat is consumed and ∼1400 mL of carbon dioxide is produced (Peters and van Slyke 1946). In addition to ∼63 ton of water, 0.5 ton of alcohol, 8 ton of carbohydrates and 2 ton of proteins, humans consume ∼3 ton of fat during their lives.

The efficiency of fat as foodstuff is very high, because the fat contained in food is almost completely reabsorbed by the body; in the feces (in the course of one’s life ∼5 ton, plus 30 ton of urine) only 3.3% of lipids can be found (Pimparkar 1961). Thus, fats play an indispensable part in nutrition as supplier of energy, source of compounds that the body cannot synthesize by itself, and carrier of vital substances. Fats cannot be replaced by other substances. Apart from this physiological aspect, they are excellent carriers of flavors, and dishes prepared with fats are much tastier than others.

Fats also provide a smooth, creamy consistency to many dishes, which translates into a good mouth-feel. This explains in part why the consumption of fat is still very high today, even though the segment of the population performing hard labor has diminished greatly compared with the past, rendering a very high supply of calories no longer necessary (see also Chapter 1.4).

The improvement in flavor, in particular, is certainly the reason why fats and oils have been appreciated for a long time. However, only since the beginning of the present century has it been possible in the industrial nations to provide the population with sufficient quantities of fat at reasonable prices (see Chapter 1.3). Because of this increasing importance of fats and oils, governments have intervened to a great extent in their production and distribution in the last 100 years (see Chapter 1.5). European food legislation, in particular, has often been marked by protectionist objectives.

The importance of fats and oils to the global economy (Chapter 1.3) becomes clear when considering the amount of oilseed and fruit grown worldwide. In 1995, ∼60 million ton of palm fruit and ∼11 million ton of olives as well as >200 million ton of oilseeds were harvested. From these amounts, >90 million ton of oils and fats were derived. Many countries are trying to enlarge their shares in the international market, a strategy that is usually to the disadvantage of others and leads to defensive measures. National interests play a part here. For example, 10 years ago, the European Union began to promote the cultivation of sunflowers and rape in the area of the Community. A simultaneous attempt to stabilize the Community’s budget deficit by introducing a tax on fat caused the U.S. to fear for its soy exports, resulting in a threat of trade obstructions aimed at the European automobile industry. The confrontation was averted in 1987, but it will reappear again and again, unless the issue of a tax on fat is buried for good.

In addition to the importance of oils and fats for human nutrition, there is a substantial market for technical fats. The importance of these oils and fats will increase considerably in the future because they represent a vast potential of naturally regenerating raw materials in which the chemical and pharmaceutical industries have a special interest. A short survey of these technical fats is given in Chapter 1.6.

The importance of oils and fats for human nutrition, the animal feed produced from the processing of most oil plants and the economic importance of oils and fats, i.e., the fact that many millions of people worldwide make a living by the production and processing of oils and fats, all combine to give special importance to technology. This may even be enhanced if oil-bearing crops could be offered to the chemical i...