CC5:UNIT III: Nutrients

LIPIDS/ FATS (Part -1)

Part 1( Introduction& importance of lipids in foods)
Dr. DEVAKI. C. S
Assistant Professor
Department of Food Science and Nutrition
Yuvaraja's College (Autonomous)
University of Mysore
Mysore - 570 005

Introduction:

The term lipid is applied to a group of natural substances characterised by

their insolubility in water and their solubility in such “fat solvents” as ether,
chloroform, boiling alcohol and benzene.

However, a novel definition and comprehensive system of classification of

lipids were proposed in 2005 (Fahy et al., 2005).

The novel definition is chemically based and defines lipids as small

hydrophobic or amphipathic (or amphiphilic) molecules that may originate entirely
or in part through condensations of thioesters and/or isoprene units. (FAO, 2008)

Chemically, the lipids are either esters of fatty acids or substances capable of
forming such esters. The word ‘Lipid’ is used when discussing the metabolism of fats
in the body whereas the term ‘Fats’ is used the fatty component of foods and diets. It
encompasses not only dietary sources of energy and the lipid constituents of cell and
organelle membranes but also the fat-soluble vitamins, corticosteroid hormones, and
certain mediators of electron transport, such as coenzyme Q.

Fats like carbohydrates are composed of three elements carbon, hydrogen and
oxygen. The amount of oxygen is lower in relation to the other two elements.
Therefore, fat is more concentrated source of energy than carbohydrates.

Lipids are wide spread in nature among all vegetable and animal matter. Some
compounds of this group, such as phosphatide and sterols are found in all living cells.
Lipids, with the proteins and carbohydrates form an essential part of the colloidal
complex of protoplasm. Complex lipids are also found in large quantities in brain and
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nervous tissue. Chemically lipids are all esters of glycerol with higher fatty acids
(Figure 1).

This episode deals with the following important sub headings.

 Importance of fats and oils in Indian foods and cookery
 Classification of fats based on structure
 The principal lipids present in the foodstuff, which we take in normal diet
 Digestion of dietary lipids in GI tract
 Absorption of lipids

1. Importance of fats & oils in Indian foods and cookery

 Fat is used in shallow, pan-frying and deep fat frying. Shallow frying uses
moderate temperatures thus it prevents smoking.

 On the other hand, deep frying causes smoking and there is a direct transfer of
heat from hot to cold food till food cooks. This causes loss of moisture from
food surface and makes the food lighter. This leads to cooking of the entire
food by heat transfer to the interior. Therefore, the outer surface is crisp and
brown due to rapid evaporation of water from the surface.
 Foods fried in fats get caramelized, gelatinized and dextrinised.
 Fats are an integral component in baking cakes, pastries and breads. They act
as leavening and shortening agents in the above products.
 Fats and oils are important constituents of emulsions.
 Fats affect the smooth texture of products by interfering with sugar
crystallization. They retard crystallization in crystalline candies. They also
retard gelatinization in starch in mixtures thickened by starch.
 Fats improve the taste and palatability of foods cooked in it.
 They improve the flavour and aroma of foods and give them a characteristic
taste.

2 Classification of Lipids based on structure

Lipids are important as dietary energy sources or as functional or structural
constituents within the cell. The classification of lipids are as follows (Figure 2).

2.1. Simple lipids: These are esters of fatty acids with various alcohols. They are
usually further classified according to the nature of the alcohols.
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 a) Fats and Oils: These are esters of fatty acids and glycerol, a form in which
lipids are present in food. At room temperature, oils are liquids and fats are
solids.

b) Waxes: These are esters of fatty acids with long chain aliphatic alcohols or
with cyclic alcohols. These may be subdivided into true waxes, cholesterol
esters, vitamin A and its carotenoid esters and Vitamin D esters.

2.2. Compound Lipids:

The compound lipids are esters of fatty acids containing groups other than,
and in addition, to an alcohol and fatty acids, phosphorous, carbohydrate or protein.

a) Phospholipids: contain a phosphoric acid in addition to the alcohol and fatty

acids and a nitrogenous base.
Eg: lecithin, cephalin, sphingomyelin

b) Glycolipids: contain a fatty acid, carbohydrate and a nitrogenous base.

Glycolipids can be subclassified into cerebrosides and gangliosides.

c) Aminolipids, sulpholipids: The sulpholipids yield sulphuric acid on

hydrolysis.

d) Lipoproteins: are macromolecular complex of lipids with proteins. These

compounds are found in mammalian plasma bound with proteins.
There are four types of lipoproteins, they are:
i) chylomicrons,
ii) very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL)
iii) low-density lipoprotein (LDL)
iv) high-density lipoproteins (HDL)

2.3. Derived Lipids:

These are substances liberated during hydrolysis of simple and compound
lipids which still retain the properties of lipids.

The important members of this group are sterols, fatty acids and alcohol.
a) Sterols: Sterols are solid alcohols and form esters with fatty acids. In nature
they occur in the free state in the form of esters.
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 Based on their origin sterols are classified as cholesterol (animal origin) and
phytosterol (in plants).
Cholesterol is a complex type of lipid that is regularly synthesised by and
stored in the liver. It is present in all animal products.

b) Fatty acids: Fatty acids are the main building blocks of fat. They have a
methyl group (CH3) at one end and a carboxyl group (COOH) at the other end
with a chain of carbon and hydrogen atom in the middle. They have a basic
formula CH3(CH2)nCOOH. Where ‘n’ denotes the number of carbon atoms
which may vary from 2 to 2l.
Fatty acids can be classified into three broad classes according to the degree of
unsaturation;
i. saturated fatty acids (SFA) have no double bonds,
ii. monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) have one double bond and
iii. polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) have two or more double bonds.

In general, these fatty acids have an even number of carbon atoms and
have unbranched structures. The double bonds of naturally occurring
unsaturated fatty acids are very often of the cis orientation (Figure 3).

Trans fatty acids: The orientation of hydrogen atoms around the double bond
distinguishes cis fatty acids from trans fatty acids (Figure 3). Most
unsaturated fatty acids found in nature have double bonds in the cis
configuration.

i. Saturated Fatty Acids

Saturated fatty acids (SFA) are those that are unable to absorb more hydrogen,
usually stiff, hard fats. They are further classified into four subclasses according to
their chain length (Table 1):
 Short - chain fatty acids: Fatty acids with from 3 - 7 carbon atoms.
Sources: Dairy fat (Butter)
 Medium - chain fatty acids: Fatty acids with from 8 - 13carbon atoms.
Sources: dairy fat, coconut and palm kernel oils
 Long - chain fatty acids: Fatty acids with from 14 - 20 carbon atoms. (Figure 4)
Sources: most fats and oils

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 Very - long-chain fatty acids: Fatty acids with twenty - one or more carbon
atoms.
Sources: peanut oil

ii. Unsaturated Fatty Acids

Unsaturated fatty acids have one or more double bond in their molecule. Thus
they are not saturated with hydrogen. They are liquid at room temperature.
Eg. Sunflower oil.
Unsaturated fatty acids may be monounsaturated or polyunsaturated depending
on the number of double bonds. The unsaturated fatty acids are further classified
into three sub - groups according their chain lengths.
 Short - chain unsaturated fatty acids: Fatty acids with 19 or fewer carbon
atoms.
 Long - chain unsaturated fatty acids: Fatty acids with 20 - 24 carbon atoms.
 Very – long - chain unsaturated fatty acids: Fatty acids with 25 or more
carbon atoms.
a) Monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA): MUFA have only one double bond in
their molecule (Table 2).
Eg. olive oil, mustard oil, sunflower, safflower oil, fish oils
Oleic acid (OA - Figure 4) is the most common MUFA and it is present in
considerable quantities in both animal and plant sources.

b) Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA): PUFA can be divided into 12 families,

ranging from double bonds located at the n-1 position to the n-12 position. The most
important families, in terms of extent of occurrence and human health and nutrition,
are the n-6 and n-3 families. The parent fatty acid of n-6 family is Linoleic acid (LA-
Figure 5) and n-3 is α-linolenic acid (ALA-Figure 5). Linoleic (ω-6) and α-linolenic
(ω-3) acids are the simple PUFA, which attain major proportions in most vegetable
oils. Soyabean, rapeseed, green-leafy vegetables and mustard oils contribute
significant proportion of α linolenic (ω-3) acid. Eiocosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and
docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) are the most important n-3 fatty acids in human
nutrition. EPA and DHA are components of marine lipids.

3. Digestion

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 The digestion of fats and other lipids poses a special problem because of (a)
their insolubility in water, (b) lipolytic enzyme solubility in an aqueous medium has
limits. However, in the gut this problem is solved by emulsification of fats.
Particularly by bile salts, present in bile and phospholipids. This emulsification
greatly increases the surface area of the dietary lipid targeted for digestion.
Consequently, the accessibility of the fat to digestive enzymes is greatly increased by
bile salt action.
Triacylglycerols (TAG), phospholipids, and sterols (mainly cholesterol)
provide the lipid component of the Indian diet. Of these, triacylglycerols, customarily
called fats or triglycerides. The consumption rate of TAG on an average is about 150g
daily. Compare this to the cholesterol, which is typically 300-600mg/day, depending
on the quantity of animal products in the diet.
Digestive enzymes involved in breaking down dietary lipids in the
gastrointestinal tract are esterases. They cleave the ester bonds within triacylglycerols
(lipase), phospholipids (phospholipases), and cholesteryl esters (cholesterol esterase).

a) Triacylglycerol Digestion
Most dietary triacylglycerol digestion is completed in the lumen of the small
intestine (SI). The process begins in the stomach with lingual lipase released by the
serous gland and gastric lipase produced by the chief cells of the stomach. Basal
secretion of these lipases occurs continuously. These get stimulated by neural, dietary,
and mechanical factors. These lipases account for much of the limited digestion (10%
– 30%) of TAG that occurs in the stomach. The lipase activity is made possible by the
enzymes at the low pH of the gastric juices. Both lingual and gastric lipases act on
triacylglycerols containing medium- and short- chain fatty acids. They hydrolyze fatty
acids, releasing a fatty acid and 1,2-diacylglycerols as products.
Dietary fat in the stomach will be hydrolyzed by lingual, gastric lipases and
emulsification. Emulsification takes place through muscle contractions and shearing
forces, which squirt the surface of a fat. Along with the muscle contraction, some of
the emulsifiers in the acid medium include complex polysaccharides, phospholipids,
and peptic digests of dietary proteins. The presence of undigested lipid in the stomach

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delays the rate at which the stomach contents empty. This inhibits the gastric motility
and therefore, fats have a “high satiety value.”
Most TAG digestion occurs in the small intestine. Hydrolysis of the long chain
fatty acids, require less acidity, appropriate lipases, more effective emulsifying agents
(bile-salts). These conditions are provided in the lumen of the upper small intestine.
The partially hydrolyzed lipid emulsion leaves the stomach and enters the duodenum
as fine lipid droplets. Effective emulsification takes place with continuation of
mechanical shearing and bile. Triacylglycerol breakdown products with bile salts acts
as emulsifying agents. The action of pancreatic lipase on ingested triacylglycerols
results in a complex mixture of diacylglycerols, monoacylglycerols, and FFAs.
Therefore, the main path of this digestion progresses from triacylglycerols 2,3-
diacylglycerols 2-monoacylglycerols. Only a small percentage of the
triacylglycerols is hydrolyzed totally to free glycerol.

b). Cholesterol and Phospholipid Digestion

Cholesterol esters and phospholipids are hydrolyzed by a specific process.
Esterified cholesterol undergoes hydrolysis to free cholesterol and a fatty acid. This
reaction is catalyzed by the enzyme cholesterol esterase. Lecithin is hydrolytically
removed by a specific esterase, phospholipase, producing lysolecithin and a FFA The
products of the partial digestion of lipids, primarily 2-monoacylglycerols, lysolecithin,
cholesterol, and fatty acids, combine with bile salts to form micelles. A summary of
the digestion of lipids is shown in Table 1 and Figure 6.

4. Absorption and Utilisation of Lipids

Small molecules of digested triglycerides (glycerol, short & medium chain
fatty acids) are absorbed directly into the blood stream. They bind with albumin and
are transported directly to the liver. As mentioned earlier larger molecules merge into
spherical complexes known as micelles. The lipid contents of the micelles diffuse into
the intestinal cells. Within the intestinal cells, micelles are placed into transport
vehicle called chylomicrons. The intestinal cells then release chylomicrons into the
lymphatic system. The lymph circulation empties the chylomicrons into the blood
stream. The blood transport lipids to the rest of the body and cells absorb them and
utilize for energy. This breakdown of fat to yield energy is called lipolysis. Majority
of lipids enter via the lymph to the liver where the protein and lipid (cholesterol,
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triglycerides) are bound together to form lipoproteins. As we have seen in
classification, there are four types of lipoproteins. They are chylomicrons, VLDL,
LDL and HDL. Chylomicrons, VLDL and LDL serve to transport and deposit lipids
from the intestine and liver to the tissues for absorption. LDL, has the highest
cholesterol fraction. LDL favours lipid deposition in tissues including blood vessels
and hence termed ‘bad’ cholesterol. HDL cholesterol removes the lipids from the
tissues and transports it back to liver for disposal. Hence, it is termed as ‘good
cholesterol’. High levels of LDL cholesterol indicates a high risk of cardiovascular
disease. Key features of intestinal absorption of lipid digestion products are depicted
in Figure 6.

5. Conclusion:
The term lipid is applied to a group of naturally substances characterised by
their insolubility in water and their solubility in “fat solvents”. Fats like carbohydrates
are composed of three elements carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Fats and oils are
important components of Indian foods. They have many functional role in bakery
products, like shortening and leavening agents. Fats improve flavour, taste and
palatability of food. Lipids are classified as simple lipids, compound lipids and
derived lipids. The digestion lipids poses a special problem because of insolubility in
water. The solubility can be solved by emulsification of fats by bile salts and
phospholipids. Digestive enzymes involved in breaking down dietary lipids in the
gastrointestinal tract are esterases, phospholipases, and cholesterol esterase. On
digestion of lipids it first forms diacylglycerols and then monoacylglycerols. SCFAs
are absorbed directly into the blood stream. Micelles formed by partial digestion of
lipids diffuse into the intestinal cells. Micelles helps in the absorption of digested lipid
contents which include FFA, 2-monoacylglycerols, cholesterol, cholesterol esters, and
lysolecithin. Lipids are transported in blood by lipoproteins.

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 Table 1: Common saturated fatty acids in food fats and oils
Systematic
Trivial name Abbreviation Typical sources
name
butyric butanoic C4:0 dairy fat (butter)
caproic hexanoic C6:0 dairy fat
caprylic octanoic C8:0 dairy fat, coconut and palm kernel oils
capric decanoic C10:0 dairy fat, coconut and palm kernel oils
lauric dodecanoic C12:0 coconut oil, palm kernel oil
myristic tetradecanoic C14:0 dairy fat, coconut oil, palm kernel oil
palmitic hexadecanoic C16:0 most fats and oils
stearic octadecanoic C18:0 most fats and oils
arachidic eicosanoic C20:0 peanut oil
behenic docosanoic C22:0 peanut oil
lignoceric tetracosanoic C24:0 peanut oil

Table 2: Common monounsaturated fatty acids in food fats and oils

Common Systematic
Delta abbreviation Typical sources
name name
cis-9- fish oils, most animal and
palmitoleic 16:1Δ9c (9c-16:1)
hexadecenoic vegetable oils.
all fats and oils, especially olive
cis-9- 18:1Δ9c (9c-18:1)
oleic oil, mustard oil and high-oleic
octadecenoic (OA)
sunflower and safflower oil
cis-11-
cis-vaccenic 18:1Δ11c (11c-18:1) most vegetable oils
octadecenoic
cis-9-
20:1Δ9c (9c-20:1) fish oils
gadoleic eicosenoic
cis-11-
20:1Δ11c (11c-20:1) fish oils
eicosenoic
cis-13- mustard seed oil, high erucic
erucic acid 22:1Δ13c (13c-22:1)
docosenoic rapeseed oil
cis-15-
nervonic 24:1Δ15c (15c-24:1) fish oils
tetracosenoic

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 Table 3: Overview of Triacylglyceride Digestion

Gropper et al, (2009). In Advanced Nutrition and Human Metabolism

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 Figure 1: Structure of Lipid

Figure 2: Classification of Lipids

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 Figure 3: Structure of Different types of fat

Figure 4: Saturated Fatty acid and Monounsaturated Fatty acid

Figure 5: Polyunsaturated Fatty acids – ω3 and ω6

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Figure 6: Summary of digestion and absorption of dietary lipids

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