Facts and Fancies About Food Fats

The unsaturated fatty acids of hydrogenated shortening and other edible fats

“…In semitechnical literature hydrogenated fats have been criticized for edible use for alleged lack of the nutritive value attaching to the so-called essential fatty acids having more than one double bond in the molecular formula. Such statements, although they are regularly unaccompanied by actual evidence, are beginning to appear in the scientific literature, as evidenced by the first reference at the end of the present paper (1). Recently a prominent biochemist went so far as to include the same criticism in testimony given in a legal proceeding, and incidentally he testified that certain brands of shortening were deficient in linoleic acid due to hydrogenation, calling by name the brands identified herein as No.…”