Comparative nutritional quality of palmstearin-liquid oil blends and hydrogenated fat (vanaspati)

An attempt was made to use high-melting lowdigestible fat palmstearin as a vanaspati substitute by blending it with polyunsaturated fatty acid-rich liquid oils. This blending produced fat products of zero-trans fatty acid content and melting points below the human body temperature, so that they can be digested easily. The new blended products were fed to male albino rats (Charles Foster strain); the coefficients of digestibilities were 94.2% for palmstearin and rapeseed oil blend, 95.1% for palmstearin and sunflower oil blend, and 96.2% for palmstearin and soybean oil blend, which were somewhat better than the digestibility coefficient of conventional vanaspati (93.6%). Feeding experiments for three months showed comparable results in terms of serum lipid profiles. The blended products significantly increased the total cholesterol level but not the free cholesterol level in serum and liver of rats when compared with those of the conventional vanaspati group of rats.