Investigation of fatty acid composition, thermal and rheological behavior of yak, cow and horse fats

Abstract

The objective of this paper was tostudy the fatty acid composition, and thermal and rheological behavior of Kyrgyz yak (Bos grunniens)visceral fats compared to visceral fats of cow (Bos taurus) and horse (Equuscaballus). The result of the studуrevealed that the content of saturated fatty acids (SFA) in yak fat was higherthan those of unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) (about 58.3 and 38.0 %,respectively). The UFA content in yak fat was higher compared to cow fat (about27.1 %) and lower than that of horse fat (about 60.0 %). The meltingtemperatures determined using DSC were found to be 55.18±0.71, 54.98±3.01,37.60±1.92 °C for yak, cow and horse fat, respectively. These results wereclose to the solid-liquid transition temperature determined by oscillationrheology (52.20±0.89 °C for yak, 53.56±3.53 °C for cow and 33.7±1.84 °C forhorse fat). Rotational rheological measurements at 35 °C have shown that yakfat had shear thinning flow behavior with high a viscosity of 226 mPas comparedto horse fat, which has Newtonian flow behavior with a viscosity of about 36mPas (γ=100s-1). Results on properties obtained inthis study will help to understand the contribution of yak fats to thestructural properties of new products with these alternative fat sources.

Keywords

• yak fat
• fatty acids
• rheology
• flow behavior
• melting
• yak fat
• fatty acids
• rheology
• flow behavior
• melting