Fatty acid profile of "bottled butter fat" produced in the region of Salinas, Minas Gerais

Abstract

The economic history of Salinas, Minas Gerais is largely based on cattle-breeding. The discoverers found in the city's region a large potential for the progress of their activities, either in agriculture or in cattle-breeding (OLIVEIRA, 2000). Even today, milk production plays an important role in family farming activities, which besides raw milk, provides curdal cheese, cottage cheese, and "bottled butter fat", which is manufactured with fat extracted from whey. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyze the fatty acid profile of "bottled butter fat" produced in Salinas, in the northern region of Minas Gerais , and also to analyze the ratio of saturated to unsaturated fatty acid of these butters. The fatty acid profile of the "bottled butter fat" was determined by chromatographic analysis, according to methodology advanced by Luddy et al. (1960), and later modified by Abreu (1993). Analysis of variance was applied for comparison of the averages by the Tukey test at 5% probability. The fatty acid profiles of all the "bottled butter fat" were found to be similar. The concentration of saturated fatty acids was higher than that of the unsaturated, with averages of 60,36% and 39,64%, respectively.