Food Lipids: Chemistry, Nutrition, and Biotechnology

24
Food Applications of Lipids
FRANK D. GUNSTONE
Scottish Crop Research Institute, Dundee, Scotland
I. FATS AVAILABLE FOR FOOD APPLICATIONS
A. Introduction
The annual production of oils and fats now exceeds 113 million tonnes and is on a
rising curve. Table 1 contains data for the four major vegetable oils, some minor
vegetable oils, and the animal fats. These are average annual oil production figures
for a series of 5-year periods including some predictions for the future and show the
increasing dominance of vegetable oils and particularly of soybean oil, palm oil,
rapeseed/canola oil, and sunflower oil. The information is presented on a 5-year basis
to avoid unusual harvests in any particular year. This book is devoted to the 80% of
total lipids that are part of the human diet. An additional 6% is fed to animals, and
the remaining 14% is the basis of the oleochemical industry, which produces mainly
a wide range of surface-active compounds some of which are important in the food
industry.
Oil World (1) provides regular statistics on 17 oils and fats, a list that excludes
cocoa butter (Sec. VI), rice bran oil, and many specialty oils. The 17 oils vary in
their fatty acid and triacylglycerol composition and have differing physical, chemical,
and nutritional properties. The food technologist has to work with these resources to
produce a wide range of products with optimized properties. Similar products can
frequently be obtained with more than one selection of oils and fats, as is apparent
in the fact that similar materials available in different regions of the world are made
from different blends of natural or processed oils. But what happens when the natural
products do not provide the necessary range of properties? Lipid scientists and technologists
have devised several procedures to extend the range of natural fats. These
are listed in Table 2. Some are discussed in greater detail in other chapters in this
book, and they have been described elsewhere by the present author (2,3).
Copyright 2002 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. All Rights Reserved.