Trans Fatty Acids: Replacement Technologies in Food

Trans fatty acids (TFA’s) are the isomerization form of carbon double bonds and give desired physical and chemical properties as saturated fatty acids in food products. Some trans fatty acids occur naturally, while most of it is artificial. Major contributors of the TFA’s in the diet are fried and baked foods, in which partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are used. Increasing epidemiological and biochemical evidence has suggested a direct link of consumption of TFA’s rich food and various health disorders such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, breast cancer etc. In response to the increasing risk of diseases and public health concerns, food and nutritional organization recommends that the intake of TFA’s by all population groups should be kept as low as possible, which is about 1% of energy intake or less; and WHO (2004) has called for the elimination of TFA’s from the global food supply. There is considerable interest in zero- and low trans fats containing food products including food manufacturers, and demand of such products is rising. For production of such type of food products, knowledge about the chemical nature, nutritional aspects of TFA’s and role of food technologies available is required. Low TFA’s food products can be manufactured with use of technologies such as electrochemical hydrogenation, organogelation, interesterification, fractionation and speciality oils etc. The present paper focused on chemistry, nature, nutritional aspect, method of analysis, labelling and various novel replacement technologies that have ability to mimic the functionality of saturated fats, give desired application in baked, fried and confectionary products with low or zero trans fatty acids.