Triglyceride Guide

By:   Chris teeor.

TRIGLYCERIDES:  (continued):

MORE ABOUT LIPIDS:

The sources of majority of lipids  in your body  are from animal fats and/or other animal products.  The source of animal fats did come from carbohydrates found in plants.  Carbohydrates are classified as (1) Complex carbohydrates and (2) Refined carbohydrates.   Complex carbohydrates are those which are used straight from the plants.  Refined carbohydrates  are those whose ingredients have undergone a process of refining.   The refining process takes away most of the enzymes, fiber, vitamins and minerals.  Your body needs all those vital ingredients for further food processing and digestion,. One exaample of  Complex  carbohydrate is potatoe.  Pasta is a good example of refined caarbohydrate.    Whatever excess of refined carbohydrate available in the system is converted into triglycerides  then fatty acids and finally as  fats and stored for future use.

Not  all fataty acids  are equal in length;  some are short chained and still others are long chained.   Shorter the chain , faster it solves in water.  The solubility of longer chained fatty acids are comparatively slower.

There are two types of fatty-acids based on the basis of saturation.   They are (a) sdaturated fatty-acids  (b)  un-saturated fatty acids,  (c) poly-unsaturated fatty acids, and, (d) transfatty acids.     Saturation means that if  every bond  in the  chain of carbon atoms is holding a hydrogen atom without any letup,  we take it that the chain is a saaturated fatty-acid.   Technically speaking, saturated fatty-acids  are straight chain molecules with exactly the same carbon numbers  without any double bonds, each of which is holding, without let up, a hydrogen atom.

Sometimes, it is seen  that the chain of carbon of a fatty acid does have points where hydrogens are missing.      Such points are referred to as  points of  unsaturation.  It only means that there is scope  for  futher addition of hydrogen atoms to the chain of carbon.  Such a chain of fatty-acid where there is one or a number of  points of  unsaturation happened,  we call it unsaturated fatty acid. 

 If,  in a carbon chain, there are two or more number of  points found to have  missing hydrogen atoms,  i.e,  two or more points of unsaturation occurred,  it is said to be a Polyunsaturated fatty-acid.

Ttrans fatty-acids, or, Trans fats,  are a particular type of unsaturated fat,  They occur minimally in nature, but  mainly formed during the course of converting an unsaturated fat to saturated fat by  a  special  industrial  process  known as  hydrogenation.