Effect of animal fats on the physical properties of palm fat

Abstract

Palm fat is one of the most commonly used fats in food industry. The main role of palm fat is to develop the desired texture of food products. Fat blends were developed to find the most appropriate mixture fitting the technological needs. In our work palm mid fraction (PMF) was mixed with anhydrous milk fat (AMF), goose fat (G), and lard (L) in a 1:1 ratio. Anhydrous milk fat represents fat consisting of a wide range of fatty acids. Goose fat is a soft, easily melting fat, and lard is characterized as animal fat with wide melting temperature interval. The measurements aimed to establish the miscibility of the fats and the effect of animal fats on the melting-solidification profile of palm mid fraction. SFC vs temperature curves, Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) melting thermograms describe the melting profile of the samples. Isotherm crystallization by SFC vs time curves and DSC cooling thermograms were measured to characterize the solidification of pure fats and the blends. Since the SFC curves did not show crosspoints we concluded that fats blended in a 1:1 ratio were miscible. Anhydrous milk fat strongly modified the properties of palm mid fraction, the blend became similar to anhydrous milk fat. Goose fat had no strong modification effect on palm mid fraction and could be considered as a softening agent. The effect of lard was complex: melting and solidification behaviour of the blend differed from the characteristics of both parent fats.

The Effect of Foreign Fats on the Physical Properties of Anhydrous Milk Fat

“…For this method samples that already have been stabilized in the refrigerator were thawed in an 80°C thermostat for 30 minutes to delete crystal memory [15]. Solid fat content of samples cooled on two different temperatures were measured in every 3 minutes for 2 hours, while they reached the equilibrium stage.…”

“…Physical properties of blends containing milk fat and other oils/ fats can be well examined by measuring the blends' solid fat content as described in many studies [5,[7][8][9][13][14][15][16]. In these studies, generally the main target was to characterise the behaviour of milk fat blends containing 25-50% or more other fats, not the detection of small amounts of foreign fat.…”

Temperature-dependent properties of fat in adipose tissue from pork, beef and lamb. Part 2: rheology and texture

“…In contrast, the food literature includes data at elevated temperatures but is mainly focused on the thermal properties of the fat itself rather than the thermo-mechanical properties of the whole adipose tissue. [9][10][11][12] Microstructurally, fat in animals is stored within 50 to 200 µm adipocytes (cells) enclosed within an extracellular matrix (ECM), which is a solid foam comprised of proteins, proteoglycans and polysaccharides that provides a scaffold for the fat cells. 13,14 It is presumably the combination of the fat cells and the ECM that govern the texture and rheology of back fat, and their temperature-dependency.…”

“…In contrast, the food literature includes data at elevated temperatures but is mainly focused on the thermal properties of the fat itself rather than the thermo-mechanical properties of the whole adipose tissue. 9–12…”