1. Commodities: Fats and oils
Objectives :
To know the different types of fats and oils used in the diet and food preparation.
To know the 4 roles fat plays in different recipes (functional properties).
What are the similarities between these products?
What are the differences?

2. How many similarities and differences did you get?
They are all secondary products
They are all fats.
Most can be used for cooking.
They are all liquid when heated.
They can all be unhealthy if we eat too much.
Some come from an animal source
Some come from a vegetable source
Some are liquid at room temperature
Some are solid at room temperature.
Some are spreadable
Some are better for baking than others

3. What is fat? Why is fat important in the diet?
Why is too much fat bad for us?
How are fats used in cooking?
We will be looking at fat in the diet in greater detail later on in the course – but for now we are looking at the different types of fat and the role of fat in recipes.

4. Main sources of fat in the diet
In Nutrition we refer to fat as FAT
Fats can also be called lipids
Fat found in foods is either solid fat or liquid oil.
Some fats are easy to see like fat on a piece of meat or oil in a can of tuna these are called visible fats and oils.
In many foods it is difficult to see the fats and oils they contain because they are combined with other ingredients so we don’t know how much fat we are eating, these are called invisible fats and oils.

5. Sources of fat
Fat is present in food either as visible or invisible fat.
Visible fat - easy to detect;
fat on meat
butter, margarine, lard, suet
cooking fats & oils
Invisible fat – form part of the food but cannot be seen on their own
lean meat
egg yolk
flesh of oily fish
nuts, seeds, avocados, oily fish, cakes, crisps, chips, fried food, ready meals etc
Some foods naturally contain little fat eg. Fruit, vegetables and cereals
Oily fish contain healthy fats (Essential Fatty Acids) which help lower blood cholesterol & prevent blood clots

6. Food science: The 4 functions of fat in recipes
Fat has several functions in recipes:
It can trap air through creaming with sugar.
Be used for spreadable icings and fillings which set and become firm.
Be used to stop liquids from separating.
Be used as a to keep gluten strands short in pastry.
Match the functional property of fats to the description:
Plasticity shortening aeration emulsifier

7. Homework Complete the worksheet on fats
Revise for a test on commodities next Thursday
No practical next week.