Abstract
The qualitative characteristics of recent household fat spreads, whose production is rapidly increasing, were investigated by measuring various chemical and physical parameters of 8 brands of fat spread (vegetable oil type 7; milk fat blend type 1) and 7 brands of seasoning fat spread (cheese containing type 5; spice containing type 2).
1) From data on general and nutritional components, in fat spreads, a brand of a vegetable oil type was shown to contain 39.4% lipids, meeting the international standard of “minarine”, but most types commercially available contain 70% or more lipids. Thus, the energy of household fat spreads is 1550% less than that of household margarine. Also, all brands of fat spreads except 3 were fortified retinol at the same level as household margarine.
2) Analytical results on sterols, tocopherols and fatty acids in the fat spreads showed the vegetable oil type to be made from a high linoleic acid blend of vegetable oils only, but the spice containing type to contain animal fat, probably hardened fish oil. Also, 4 brands of fat spreads appeared to contain palm oil at low levels since trace amounts of tocotrienols were detected. Furthermore, tocopherol content in the vegetable oil type was relatively high. The content of α-tocopherol was markedly higher than that in any other type.
3) According to the curves of hardness index, oil-off values and solid fat content (SFC) for different types of fat spreads, the vegetable oil type tended to oil off with more difficulty and showed more SFC than high linoleic soft margarine, while the hardness was almost the same. A similar tendency was observed between each of the other types of fat spreads and the common soft margarine. Thus possibly household fat spread can be manufactured by directing more attention to its forming ability, since it contains more water than margarine.
