ABSTRACT
Oils and fats are highly abundant compounds in nature and are widely used in food and other industrial products. Their behaviour heavily influences the microstructure and physical properties of fat-based products, such as chocolates, confectionery, margarine and butter. Edible oils and fats are complex mixtures of lipidic components. The technological functionality of edible oils and fats is mainly governed by their physical properties. Hydrogenation, interesterification (chemical or enzymatic) and fractionation processes have been developed by food technologists and are widely used industrially. The main purpose of these processes is to modify the physicochemical properties of the oil or fat by reducing the degree of unsaturation of the acyl groups (hydrogenation), by redistributing the fatty acid chains (interesterification) or by a physical separation of the triacylglycerols through selective crystallization and filtration (fractionation).
