276
Fatty Acid Components of Indian Buffalo Ghees
the stearic acid content [Hilditch and Thompson,
1936]; yet it has a fatty-acid and glyceride structure
almost identical with cotton seed oil. Nor can the
matter be explained by direct infiltration of the
acid from cottonseed oil, since the latter has a molar
content of stearic acid of only 2 per cent.
Whatever may be the causes of differences of
mobilization of different oils, the source of stearic
acid in this case is almost certainly dietary oleic
or linoleic acid. Since the effects are produced
both in depot fats and in milk-fats, it may seem
attractive to consider the hydrogenation as having
occurred before passage of glycerides into the blood.
But in view of the simultaneously lowered produc-
tion of lower acids [Brown and Deck, 1930; Brown,
1931] in milk-fats, it seems more probable that the
hydrogenation process takes place during selective
withdrawal of glycerides in the depot tissues on
the one hand and in the mammary gland on the other.
There is another aspect of the question: part of
the excessive fat in the diet probably passes into
the liver as fatty acids, and these exert their modi-
fying influence on fat being synthesized from car-
bohydrate material.
Two other features of interest in the analytical
figures are (1) the high proportions of arachidic
acid in the three fats conforming to the high-stearic
type; (2) the high gadoleic acid content of ghee 1.
This may be an infiltration from the groundnut
cake that partly comprised the feed of the animal
but too much stress cannot be laid on the slender
evidence drawn from a single ester fraction.
The practical implications of the three present
analyses taken in the light of the detection of adul-
teration are suggestive in the following way. The
two features with any claim to constancy are the
C 16 unsaturated acid content and the C 14 +C 16 +C 18
saturated acid percentages. The difficulties in the
way of estimation of the former are immense; the
latter feature is also of little value since the C 16 +C 18
contents of many oils and hydrogenated oils are in
the neighbourhood of the 53 per cent for the sum
just mentioned. The only other figure of any in-
terest is the linoleic acid content, a determination
of which is possible by the iodine and thiocyanogen
values together. This is not because the percentage
of this acid is by any chance constant, but because
of the high linoleic content of common oils which
is well known; fortunately the only exception
(coconut oil having a linoleic acid content of about
1.5 per cent) can easily be detected by the R.M.-
P.V. relationship. An addition of as little of 10
per cent of other oils should greatly raise the small
linoleic content of samples of ghee. Finally, em-
phasis can still be laid on the empirical analytical
'constants' of butterfat, particularly the R.M.-
P.V.-I.V. relationship.
SUMMARY
1. The analyses of four samples of Indian buffalo
ghee of high, normal and low R.M. value (two
samples) are given in full.
2. The presence of the lower unsaturated acids,
decenoic, dodecenoic, tetradecenoic and hexade-
cenoic, has been tentatively postulated and their
rough proportions indicated.
3. The presence of an acid higher than linoleic
has been indicated and calculated as gadoleic acid.
4. A striking inverse relationship between the
lower acids and oleic acid, similar to the results
obtained on inanition by Smith and Dastur, is
discussed.
5. The effect of ingesting cottonseed oil has been
shown to be a greatly increased stearic acid content,
The mechanism of this high production has been
discussed.
6. The determination of the linoleic acid content
has been theoretically postulated as likely to help
in the determination of the genuineness or otherwise
of a sample of buffalo butterfat.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Our thanks are due to the Imperial Council of
Agricultural Research for a scheme of work under
which the present results were obtained.
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