ABSTRACT
Regio-and stereospecic distributions of fatty acids (FAs) in major neutral lipids such as triacylglycerols (TAGs, Figure 6.1) affect the physical and biological properties of fats and oils. Understanding the relationship between the texture of chocolate and the crystal structures of cacao fat, which mainly contains palmitic acid-oleic acid-palmitic acid and stearic acid-oleic acid-stearic acid, is the basis of the cacao fat substitute industry. Another major example of manufactured fats is oleic acid-palmitic acid-oleic acid, which is a mimic of natural milk fat used in infant formula, has revolutionized modern motherhood and reduced the burden on mothers. In milk fat, palmitic acid is generally located at the sn-2 position of glycerol to remain in acylglycerol form following its digestion by lipase. This is favored to avoid saponication with calcium ions and to be an efcient energy source required for infants. Another characteristic of milk fat is that it has short-chain FAs at the sn-3 position [1-3] and is believed to be digestive for infants.
