Trans Fat Content

In most naturally occurring vegetable fats and oils, double bonds are found in their cis configuration. The isomers, however, are commonly produced during the hydrogenation process used to produce fats for the formulation of margarine, shortenings and other hardened fat products. Animal and marine fats, on the other hand, may contain measurable amounts of naturally occurring trans isomers. trans fatty acids are of increasing concern to nutritionists and the medical community due to their association with various metabolic disorders and heart disease. Under new guidelines from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, food manufacturers are required to include trans-fatty acids on product labels. The trans content, which was previously only an industrial process control parameter, is now becoming a legal labeling requirement and effectively force processors to analyze for the trans content.

Bruker Optics FT-IR spectrometer (ALPHA, TENSOR or VERTEX) equipped with a a temperature controlled single bounce horizontal ATR unit can be used for accurate determination of isolated trans double bonds in natural or processed oils and fats with trans levels, based on the AOCS official method Cd 14d-99.