|
|
Monitoring the quality of fats in Czech bakery products
Pávová, Eva ; Táborský, Jan (advisor) ; Hejtmánková, Alena (referee)
The paper focuses on the quality of fats in Czech bakery products, such as bread. Even though bread contains very little fat, it plays an important role as a component of a typical Czech diet. Research has found out that there may be a correlation between the consumption of certain groups of fatty acids and an increased risk of some diseases, especially coronary heart disease. The correlation has been found to be the highest when trans fatty acid are included in the diet. Polyunsaturated fatty acids, on the other hand, have been claimed to have a positive effect on human health. It has been recommended by the World Health Organization that especially foods containing beneficial n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids should be incorporated into the diet more. Twenty samples of different kinds of bread were used for the analysis, half of them being samples of fresh bread, the other half containing samples of thaw-and-serve goods. The study focused on analyzing the composition of the fatty acids using gas chromatography. In addition to that, the total amount of fat in the samples was estimated based on the amount of extracted fat.
27 fatty acids were analyzed in all samples. These composed over 99 % of all fatty acids in almost all samples. Monounsaturated fatty acids were found in the greatest abundance in comparison with other groups of fatty acids. The most abundant of these were linolic acid and oleic acid. All samples contained very small amounts of trans fatty acids. The levels of these were in amounts of the order of hundreds or tens of 1 %. Very different ratios of n-3 to n-6 fatty acids were observed, ranging from 0,06 - 1,74. There were no apparent differences in the data between the two groups of samples. The total amount of extracted fat was small in the majority of samples. The values for most samples were around 5 %. One sample contained over 10 % of fat after the extraction, and three samples contained less than 1 % of fat.
A conclusion can be drawn from the study that even though the amount of fat in bread is usually small, Czech bread can be a good source of high quality fat rich in unsaturated fatty acids. In addition to that, in some cases high amounts of n-3 fatty acids are present.
|
guest ::
