What is the difference between hydrogenated fat and saturated fat?
1 Answer
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
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.
We get this from "saturation" meaning an abundance of hydrogens, and "unsaturation" from the degree of a lack of hydrogens.