Amid the welter of confusing terms and conflicting details, consumers are often baffled about how to improve their diets. FDA recently issued new regulations that will enable consumers to see clearly on a food product's label how much and what kind of fat the product contains. Fats and Fatty Acids Fats are a group of chemical compounds that contain fatty acids. Energy is stored in the body mostly in the form of fat. Fat is needed in the diet to supply essential fatty acids, substances essential for growth but not produced by the body itself.
All fatty acids are molecules composed mostly of carbon and hydrogen atoms.
A saturated fatty acid has the maximum possible number of hydrogen atoms attached to every carbon atom. Some fatty acids are missing one pair of hydrogen atoms in the middle of the molecule. These are byproducts of partial hydrogenation, a process in which some of the missing hydrogen atoms are put back into polyunsaturated fats. Both fat and cholesterol belong to a larger family of chemical compounds called lipids. All the cholesterol the body needs is made by the liver.