Examination of lipid fraction quality of margarine’

We studied 26 margarines, 13 from hydrogenated fats and 13 from fractionated or interesterified fats, by using (1) traditional routine analyses, (2) silica gel column chromatography to separate the polar compounds, (3) high-performance size-exclusion chromatography for the qualitative and quantitative determination of the single classes of substances constituting the polar compounds, and (4) gas chromatography to determine the fatty acid composition and the trans isomers. The margarines prepared from hydrogenated fats showed significantly higher mean contents of both triglyceride oligopolymers (P < 0.05) and trans isomers (P < 0.001). Margarines obtained from fractionated or interesterified fats showed significantly higher mean contents (P < 0.05) of polyunsaturated fatty acids