Palm Oil Developments No.48 (June 2008) p6-12

Palm-Based Trans-free Roll-in Margarine

KANAGARATNAM, Sivaruby, MISKANDAR Mat Sahri , NOR AINI Idris , TANGAVELU, Thiagarajan , MOHD JAAFFAR Ahmad

Fats used for formulating shortening and margarine require a certain amount of solids. These solids are mainly obtained by the catalytic hydrogenation of liquid oils. However, hydrogenated fats are undesirable in food formulations as they contain trans fatty acids. Trans fatty acids (TFA) were reported to be a cholesterol-elevating agent, raising the low density lipoprotein (bad cholesterol) and lowering the high density lipoproteins (good cholesterol) in humans (Mensick and Katan, 1990, Judd et al., 1994). Epidemiological studies have suggested a link between the consumption of TFA and coronary heart disease risk (Hennekens and Willett, 1997). Palm-based oils and fats are considered to be a potential replacement for hydrogenated fats as they have natural solid components easily obtained by fractionation, and they do not contain TFA (Berger and Idris, 2005, List and King, 2006).



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