Determination of fat in food

The significance and methods of measuring fat content

Fat is one of the important nutritional components in food, and it is the main source of heat energy for the human body. Every 1g of fat can provide 37.62kJ of heat energy in the body; It is a medium for the human body to absorb fat soluble vitamins. Lipoprotein produced by the combination of fat and protein can regulate human physiological functions and help complete biochemical reactions in the body. However, excessive fat intake can lead to obesity and the occurrence of some chronic diseases. An increase in total dietary fat can also increase the risk of certain cancers. The fat content in food has certain regulations and is an important indicator in food quality management.

Measuring the fat content of food can be used to evaluate its quality, measure its nutritional value, and is of great significance for implementing process supervision, quality management in the production process, and studying the appropriateness of food storage methods.

The content and form of fat in different types of food vary, and the methods for measuring fat also vary. The commonly used methods include Soxhlet extraction, acid hydrolysis, Rose Gotlieb method, Babcock method, Gable method, and chloroform methanol extraction. The Soxhlet extraction method is a classic method for determining fat content, and is a representative method for measuring the lipid content of various foods. However, for some samples, the measurement results are often low. The acid hydrolysis method can quantitatively determine all lipids, including bound lipids. The Rhodes Gothic method, Babcock method, and Gable method are mainly used for the determination of lipids in milk and dairy products.