What is the difference between hydrogenated fat and saturated fat?

1 Answer
Truong-Son N.
Dec 8, 2015

It's just a difference of scope.

A hydrogenated fat is more general and a saturated fat is more specific. How hydrogenated is hydrogenated? At least one #"C"-"C"# bond is a single bond, or not every other bond is a double bond. Basically, it goes like this:

So essentially, a saturated fat is just a fatty acid (carboxylic acid with a long alkyl tail) with no double bonds. A monounsaturated fat has only one double bond, and a polyunsaturated fat has multiple double bonds. #omega#-N fatty acids tend to have double bond sequences that look like the depictions above.

We get this from "saturation" meaning an abundance of hydrogens, and "unsaturation" from the degree of a lack of hydrogens.

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