Valorization of beef tallow by lipase-catalyzed interesterification with high oleic sunflower oil

Although beef tallow (BT) has been considered a hard low-trans fat convenient to be used in several bakery applications, it has some undesirable characteristics like fatty acid composition, crystallization behavior, graininess formation and poor plastic range. This work studied the modification of BT by blending at different percentages with high oleic sunflower oil (HOSFO) followed by the enzyme-catalyzed interesterification of the blends. The reduction in the solid fat content achieved by the simple blending was enhanced by the interesterification process, as a result of the increase in the concentration of the diunsaturated monosaturated type triacylglycerols. Interesterification strongly impacted too on the crystallization behavior of the blends, since products showed more homogeneous and regular crystals than the starting mixture. Results show that lipase catalyzed interesterification of BT with HOSFO offers a useful tool for the design of fats with adjustable physicochemical properties, improved with respect to that of the starting fats. © AOCS 2011.