Food Lipids: Chemistry, Nutrition, and Biotechnology

promote quality as foods or food ingredients. (With the advent of molecular biology
‘‘kits,’’ some food scientists are positioned to bridge the production/postproduction
gap as individuals.) However, with these new opportunities come responsibilities.
While continuing advances in food science will expand knowledge on compositional
determinants of quality of various food resources, these new developments must be
interpreted in a context that will provide suitable targets for genetic manipulation.
Thus, if food scientists cannot effectively position or communicate their findings in
a manner conductive to exploitation by scientists in allied disciplines, the result will
be manifest as lost opportunities. Specifically, opportunities exist to improve or design
the nascent quality of a bioresource for the express purpose of postproduction
utilization as food. This opportunity presents to us another, and perhaps the ultimate,
dimension of control of food quality.
Fats and oils comprise one of the most important and abundant renewable food
resources. Sources of edible fats and oils can be classified as being of plant or animal
(marine and domesticated) origin. While there has been interest in the culture of
microorganism for lipid production, particularly oleaginous fungi and some yeasts
(1,2), one can anticipate a lengthy interim before microbial lipids contribute substantially
to global supplies of edible oils. If, or when, microbial lipid production
becomes commercially feasible, it would seem likely that it would gravitate to niche
markets, such as the production of specialized lipids (3), including those with pharmacological
properties (4). Table 1 offers a global representation of the production
of edible (and selected nonedible) fats and oils (hereafter, referred to as oils or lipids)
(5–7). Crude oils are refined for the purpose of purifying the triacylglycerol components
for food use. These triacylglycerols serve as storage lipid (Sec. II) for the
host plant tissue. Plant fruit [e.g., palm (Elaeis guineensis), coconut (Cocos nucifera),
Table 1 Global Production of Edible
Oils a
Source Amount (MMT) b
Soybean 18.45
Palm 13.96
Rapeseed 9.95
Sunflower 7.65
Tallow/grease 7.0
Butter 5.3
Groundnut 4.18
Cottonseed 3.58
Coconut 2.94
Palm kernel 1.86
Olive 1.85
Corn 1.66
Marine oils 1.1
Sesame 0.69
a
Compiled from data for 1993–1994.
b
MMT, million metric tons.
Source Refs. 5–7.
Copyright 2002 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. All Rights Reserved.