Fatty acid composition of vegetable oils and animal fats

Abstract

The fatty acid composition of different kinds of edible vegetable oils (corn, soybean, olive, cottonseed, peanut and sunflower seed) and animal fats (butter and lard) was determined by gas liquid chromatography. The sunflower seed oil presented the highest yield of unsaturated acids (86.10%) followed by the soybean oil (84.15%), while Cottonseed oil showed the highest saturation (24.23%). Butterfat revealed great number of fatty acids (32) from 4 to 22 including several fatty acids with odd number of carbon atoms.