The Use of Sitosteryl Esters As Anti-Spattering Agents in Margarine

Today margarine is found in many, many recipes. The housewife finds it an acceptable substitute for butter in frying, baking, eating and in making frostings. The margarine is inexpensive, has the same physical characteristics as butter such as texture, melting point, congeal point, flavor and taste. In addition, margarine has 15,000 U.S.P. units Vitamin A added per pound. Oftentimes winter butter or even summer butter does not meet this figure. Butter, of course, is made from animal fat while margarine is made from vegetable fat. Each contains milk, the perfect food. Animal fat increases blood cholesterol while vegetable fats reduce it. Margarine is lower in cholesterol while vegetable fats reduce it. Margarine is lower in cholesterol than butter as reported at the 1957 session of the Federation of Biological Societies, Chicago, Illinois. The study was made by Dr. Roslyn B. Alfin Slater of the University of Southern California School of Medicine who observed that the cholesterol count in the blood and livers of forty-sic generations of white rats fed three times normal quantities of margarine fats remained normal. Observations were over a period of eighteen years. It has been noted that certain cholesteryl esters are effective anti-spattering agents when present in margarine. However, extensive literature on cholesterol and its esters shows that it is thought to be the cause of many pathological conditions such as arteriosclerosis and the coronary thrombosis that often follows. Sitosterol is similar in constitution and configuration to cholesterol, differing only in an added ethyl group positioned at carbon atom 24. It was hoped that sitosteryl esters, providing these could be synthesized and incorporated into margarine, might also act as anti-spattering agents. As cholesterol is reputed to be the only sterol which is absorbed from foods, there would be no harmful physiological effects from sitosteryl esters