Abstract
Shown in the preceding paper, the digestibility of the sucrose ester of stearic acid in rat was revealed to vary with the degree of substitution in sucrose molecule. This paper is to explore the relation possibly existing between the digestibility of the sucrose esters and the structure of fatty acid moiety; the length of carbon chain and the degree of unsaturation.
Various sucrose esters were prepared using lauric, stearic, oleic and behenic acid, and hydrogenated tallow as fatty acid moiety. Rats were maintained on the diet containing these esters at 2.5%level.
The digestibility was found to be dependent on the content of mono-ester; the sucrose esters prepared with hydrogenated tallow containing 72, 50 and 15% of the mono-esters on weight basis were digested in the rat 80, 58 and 24%, respectively. The digestibility was also found different by the fatty acid constituent even at a constant mono-ester level ; the digestibilities of sucrose esters of lauric, stearic, oleic and behenic acid were 92, 59, 83 and 19% respectively, mono-ester level being adjusted to around 50% except for benenate. These facts could be interpreted to indicate a close relationship between the digestibility and the HLB of the sucrose ester, i. e. sucrose ester of the higher HLB is more digestible.
