There are three macro components of foods namely protein, carbohydrates
and lipids. Lipids include fats and oils which are very important components for the
human diet and considered to be concentrated sources of energy. Major classes of fats
and oils are vegetables oils, marine oils and animal fats. Naturally, in vegetable oils all
fatty acids are in cis form. But through industrial processing, especially during
hydrogenation process, artificial trans fats are developed and considered to be very
dangerous for human health. According to the Food & Drug Administration (FDA),
trans fat is supposed to be unwanted fat and in the diet it should be as minimum as
possible. Therefore, trans fat labeling is mandatory in all foods in which fats and oils
are involved. For the trans fat, labeling on food products requires adequate analytical
methods. Therefore, the present review will cover brief outline of analytical techniques
used for the analysis of trans fat.
Keywords: Analytical techniques, Food, Oils and fats, Trans fat.