Abstract
The nature of the fatty acid presented in each type of vegetable oil will determine the oil’s characteristic. The purpose of this review is to describe the medium chain fatty acids present in vegetable oils absorption mechanism and their benefits for human body, combined with technological advantages in the preparation of food formulations. Highlighting how the source of the raw material and the extraction method interfere with the concentration of fatty acids present in the oils. It is a review of narrative literature, which used as a theoretical framework recent scientific articles in the English language. Oils derived from coconut, palm kernel, and babassu, for example, have a solid or semi-solid characteristic at room temperature. This happens due to the presence of saturated fatty acids with medium-length carbon chains, that is from 6 to 12 carbons. Although medium-chain fatty acids are saturated, they present characteristics that are different from other long-chain saturated fatty acids. They are quickly digested by the body, which favors the absorption and the using of these nutrients, leading an impact on diseases’ control, such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension. In addition, due to their chemical structure, medium chain fatty acids can be used in the food industry as a substitute for animal fat, combining their nutritional benefits with technological advantage, being used in food preparations to impact texture, flavor, stabilize emulsions, and improve the rheological characteristics of the product.
Highlights
Vegetable oils can be extracted from vegetable raw materials such as grains, seeds, cereals, fruits and other food types (Costa et al, 2019)
3.1 General aspects Vegetable oils consist of triacylglycerides extracted from plant that present glycerol molecules linked to three fatty acid molecules (Figure 2)
Coconut oil has melting point close to 22.3 °C (Dhamodharan & Bakthavatsalam, 2020), Kernel palm oil presents melting point at approximately 28.2 °C and babassu oil has melting point ranging from 24 °C to 26°C
Summary
Vegetable oils can be extracted from vegetable raw materials such as grains, seeds, cereals, fruits and other food types (Costa et al, 2019). The physical, chemical and nutritional properties of oils depend on the nature of fatty acids found in them, which, in their turn, are influenced by the source of oil’s raw material. The raw material for oils can be influenced by the variety and maturation stage of the fruits, climate where it was cultivated other factors capable of interfering with the features of the vegetable raw material (Maruyama et al.2014). Each fatty acid has a different feature, i.e., number of carbons in the chain, degree of saturation, which determines the chemical behaviour of this oil and its stability in the face of changes in temperature, storage and other factors
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