[Quality of shortenings available on the home market].

The aim of this work was to examine the quality of shortenings available on Polish market, produced home or imported. The quality of twelve 100% vegetable fats and lard was estimated. Both chemical (fatty acids composition, especially trans isomers content, acid value, peroxide value, anisidine value, Totox, iodine value and oxidative stability--Rancimat test) and physical (melting point, solid fat content--at temperatures from 5 to 50 degrees C) properties were measured. The fats were subject to sensoric examination. The parameters defining the freshness of examined fats and their shelf life for all examined samples were good and proved the good quality. Induction time (150 degrees C) for examined fats varied from 1,79 to 4,29h. Examined fats differed significantly in saturated fatty acids content (from 14,0 do 60,2%) and trans isomers (from 0,1 to 56,6%). Fats produced from palm oil are also present and there are fats with smaller trans fat acids content. Examined shortenings contained very small content of essential fatty acids (from 0,5 to 10,4), and they showed very different melting points (from 19,6 to 42,1 degrees C) and solid phase contents. In general the examined fats were of good sensoric value. Summing up the received results, it should be underlined that large disparity in the content of trans isomers in analysed samples was observed and definitely TFA content should be lowered.