Saturated fatty acid: Caproic acid

Caproic acid CH3(CH2)4COOH is also known as Hexanoic acid, Capronic acid. Caproic acid derived its name from Latin word caper, which means goat.

It is a colorless oily liquid smelling of cheese. It is a fatty acid found as a triglyceride in cow and goat butter, and in coconut and palm oils.

Caproic acid has and heavy, acrid-acid, fatty-acid odor, often described as sweat-liked. Caproic acid is medium chain triglycerides (MCT). MCTs are widely used for parenteral nutrition in individuals requiring supplemental nutrition and are being more widely used in foods, drugs and cosmetics; they are essentially non-toxic.

This fatty acid is used as flavour ingredient and very characteristic of human sweat. It is an important ingredient in Italian cheese flavors and is also important in the profile of fermentation products.
Saturated fatty acid: Caproic acid

Nutritional value of coconut oil

Coconuts have been used as a staple part of the diets of almost all Polynesian and Melanesian and many Asian people. They are used as food and as flavoring and are made into beverages. They are highly prized for their rich oil content which are used for all cooking purposes.

Coconut oil is edible oil extracted from the kernel or meat of a true coconut. Harvested from the coconut palm tree, it’s one of the few foods that can be classified as a true super-food.

Coconut oil has the highest percentage of saturated fatty acids of all common food oils. The chief fatty acids of coconut oil are: lauric (45%), myristic (18%), palmitic (9.5%), oleic (8.2%), caprylic (7.8%), capric (7.6%), and stearic (5%).

Lauric acid is well known for antimicrobial properties that strengthen the human immune system. It is converted to the monoglyceride monolaurin in the human or animal body. And since almost half of coconut oil is comprised of this fatty acid, consumption of coconut oil is a healthy practice.

As a functional food, coconut oil is now being recognized by the medical community as a powerful tool against immune doses. This includes fat loss, better brain function and various other amazing benefits.

Coconut oil has served as the raw material for producing medium chain triglycerides, which are very useful in the treatment of certain digestive disorder.
Nutritional value of coconut oil

Saturated fatty acid

Saturated fatty acids do no not contain any double bonds of other functional groups along the chain.

The term ‘saturated’ refers to hydrogen in that all carbons contain as many hydrogen as possible. This fatty acid carrying the maximum possible number of hydrogen atoms which having no points of unsaturation. 

Saturated fatty acid is fully loaded with hydrogen and has only single bonds between the carbons.

Animal fats are generally rich in saturated fatty acids. Palmitic acid C16 is generally the most abundant saturated fatty acid in animal fats, with stearic acid C18 second in amount.

The earlier studies that involved palmitic acid identified this saturate as exerting a significant hypercholesterolemic effect.

Cocoa butter, palm kernel oil and coconut oil are saturated even though they are vegetable origin; they are firmer than most vegetable oils because of their saturation, softer than most animal fats because of their shorter carbon chains.

Saturated fatty acids are subdivided into two calluses
1. Even C fatty acid carry even number of carbons in their molecules and predominate in animal lipids.
2. Odd C fatty acids have odd number of carbons and are much less frequent in animal lipids.
Saturated fatty acid