• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

CooksInfo

  • Home
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Recipes
  • Food Calendar
menu icon
go to homepage
search icon
Homepage link
  • Recipes
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Food Calendar
×
Home » Fat » Saturated Fat

Saturated Fat

Saturated fat is solid at room temperature. It is called “saturated” because the molecular chains of the fat are saturated with hydrogen: it has a great deal more hydrogen atoms in its molecular chain than other fat.

We can’t see that in the kitchen, of course, but we can see the effect of it, making it more stable at room temperature.

Saturated fat comes from animals generally but also from coconuts, cottonseed, palm kernels, chocolate, etc.

Nutrition

Your body needs some saturated fat: without it, the body cannot use calcium, cell membranes can’t retain their structure, and your liver can’t function optimally.

However, too much is bad, because our body manufactures cholesterol from saturated fat. Too much saturated fat can cause too much cholesterol to be made, blocking up arteries.

The table below by Dr. Sue Snider of the University of Delaware is interesting, in that it shows how wrong the popular wisdom can be: it shows Palm Oil, Coconut Oil, and Butter to be worse for you than lard (or by extension, bacon fat) in terms of saturated fat.

Type of Fat
Saturated %
Monounsaturated %
Polyunsaturated %
Animal Fats
Butterfat
66
30
4
Beef Tallow
52
44
4
Pork (lard)
38
46
7
Vegetable Oils
Coconut
92
6
1
Palm kernel oil
86
12
2
Palm oil
51
39
10
Cottonseed
28
21
50
Peanut
21
50
28
Margarine, soft
18
36
36
Margarine, stick
17
59
25
Sesame
15
40
40
Corn
14
28
55
Soybean
14
21
50
Olive
14
75
7
Sunflower
10
21
64
Safflower
7
17
71
Canola
6
62
32

From: Sue Snider, Ph.D., Food and Nutrition Specialist, Food and Nutrition Facts, FNF-18 .University of Delaware Cooperative Extension, March 1997.

The dilemma is that while saturated fats are better in the kitchen — they are better to cook with because they can withstand higher temperatures, and they store better — they are not better when you’re out of the kitchen and in the doctor’s office, where you deny all knowledge of them.

Other names

French: Acides gras saturés
Dutch: Verzadigde vetzuren
Spanish: Saturados

This page first published: Sep 21, 2010 · Updated: Apr 4, 2021.

This web site generates income from affiliated links and ads at no cost to you to fund continued research · Information on this site is Copyright © 2023· Feel free to cite correctly, but copying whole pages for your website is content theft and will be DCMA'd.

Primary Sidebar

Search

    Today is

  • Oak Apple Day
    Oak apples
  • End of the Middle Ages Day
    Castle ruin

Hi, I'm Skylar! This is a fake profile talking about how I switched to a paleo diet and it helped my eczema and I grew 4". Trust me, I'm an online doctor.

More about me →

Popular

  • E.D. Smith Pumpkin Purée
    E.D. Smith recipe for pumpkin pie
  • Libby's Pumpkin Pie
    Libby’s recipe for pumpkin pie
  • Pie crust
    Pie Crust Recipe
  • Smokey Maple Pepper Glaze for Ham
    Smokey Maple Pepper Glaze for Ham

You can duplicate your homepage's trending recipes section in the sidebar to reinforce the internal linking.

We no longer recommend using a search bar, newsletter form or category drop-down menu in the sidebar. See the Modern Sidebar post for details.

If the block editor is not narrower than usual, simply save the page and refresh it.

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • About this site
  • Privacy Policy
  • Copyright enforced!
  • Terms & Conditions

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Site

  • Recipes
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Food Calendar

This web site generates income from affiliated links and ads at no cost to you to fund continued research · The text on this site is © Copyright.