Edible oils and fats

Edible oils and fats are biological mixtures of plant origin consisting of ester mixtures derived from glycerol with chain of fatty acids. The rate of unsaturated to saturated fatty acids in edible oils and fats is very important for human nutrition. While high levels of saturated fatty acids is desirable to increase oil stability, on the other hand nutritionally they become undesirable, because high levels of saturated fatty acids are frequently considered to have influence in increasing the concentration of low density lipoproteins (LDL), affecting the ratio of LDL to HDL (high density lipoproteins), promoting clothing and vascular smooth muscle proliferation. The main objective of this work was to identify the fatty acid composition of several vegetables oils and fats obtained from the market, in order to improve understanding the oil quality, stability and applicability for human nutrition. The results from this study, showed that the percentage of the total SFA ranged from 7.2% ± 0.73 for safflower oil to 90.5% ± 2.95 for coconut fat, with the predominant presence of lauiric acid (C12:0) and myristic acid (C14:0). Corn oil showed the similar content of PUFA (48.0% ± 4.5) as soybean oil (57.5% ± 2.2), which was in accordance with literature data. Sunflower seed oil also showed high PUFA content (59.5% ± 7.5). The value of P/S index which is associated to the impact in the human health is also high for safflower (10.55) and sunflower oil (6.76), which makes them the most suitable edible oils for mass consumption Keywords: edible oils, fatty acids, P/S inde