What is dietary fat?

Dietary fat refers to the fats and oils found naturally in animal and plant foods, and those used in cooking, at the table, and added to processed foods. Dietary fat is made up of fatty acids. Fatty acid can be defined as a carboxylic acid with a long aliphatic chain and most naturally occurring fatty acids have an unbranched chain of an even number of carbon atoms, from 4 to 28.

Dietary fat has five important functions:
*As a dietary source of energy
*For cell structure and membrane functions
*As a source of essential fatty acids for cell structures and prostaglandin synthesis
*As a vehicle for oil-soluble vitamins
*For control of blood lipids

Fat also contributes to the palatability of food and is important in cooking and food processing.

There are 2 types of fatty acids: saturates and unsaturated, which based on how the molecules in the fatty acid are joined together. All fats contain both saturated and unsaturated (mono- and polyunsaturated) fatty acids but are sometimes described as ‘saturated’ or ‘unsaturated’ according to the proportions of fatty acids present.

Dietary guidelines from the World Health Organization and the Dietary Reference Intakes recommend a total fat intake between 20 and 35% of total calories. The minimum of 20% is to ensure adequate consumption of total energy, essential fatty acids, and fat-soluble vitamins. This is to prevent atherogenic dyslipidemia (low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), high triglyceride-rich lipoproteins) which occurs with low-fat, high carbohydrate diets and increases risk of coronary heart disease.
What is dietary fat?

Type of flour

An ingredient used in many foods, flour is a fine powder made from cereals or other starchy food sources. The flour properties of flour are influenced by the raw materials and by the milling process and the treatments applied after milling.

It is most commonly made from wheat, but also maize (aka corn), rye, barley and rice, amongst many other grasses and non-grain plants (including many Australian species of acacia).

The vast majority of today's flour consumption is wheat flour. Wheat varieties are typically known as "hard" or "strong" if they have high gluten content, and "soft" or "weak" if gluten content is low.

Hard flour, or "bread" flour, is high gluten-forming potential forming a very strong and elastic structure, which can hold the air and gases of yeast. It is typically made of hard red spring wheat kernels, with a high protein-to-starch ratio.

Soft flour is comparatively low in gluten and so results in a finer texture. Soft flour is usually divided into "cake" flour, which is the lowest in gluten, and "pastry" flour, which has slightly more gluten than cake flour.

All purpose flour combines the desirable qualities of both hard and soft wheat flour. It does not contain bran or germ, and is known as white wheat flour, or simply ’flour’.

Corn flour is very popular in the southern United States and in Mexico. Coarse whole-grain corn flour is usually called corn meal. Corn meal which has been leached with lye is called masa harina and is used to make tortillas and tamales in Mexican cooking.

Corn flour should never be confused with cornstarch, which is known as cornflour in British English.

Triticale flour: triticale is a hybrid of wheat and rye. Triticale fours have protein concentration of 10.7% - 16.3% averaging 13.4%. They generally have shorter dough development tines than do bread flours of wheat.

100% Rye flour is used to bake the traditional sourdough breads of Germany and Scandinavia. Most rye breads use a mix of rye and wheat flours because rye has a low gluten content. Pumpernickel bread is usually made exclusively of rye, and contains a mixture of rye flour and rye meal.

Rice flour is of great importance in Southeast Asian cuisine. Also edible rice paper can be made from it. Most rice flour is made from white rice, thus is essentially a pure starch, but whole-grain brown rice flour is commercially available.

Chestnut flour is popular in Corsica, the Périgord and Lunigiana. In Corsica, it is used to cook the local variety of polenta. In Italy, it is mainly used for desserts.

Chickpea flour (besan) is of great importance in Indian cuisine, and in Italy, where it is used for the Ligurian farinata.

Flour can also be made from soy beans, arrowroot, potatoes, taro, cattail and other non-grain foodstuffs.

Whole grain sorghum flour is used in the making of a bread, roti in India.

Tang flour is a kind of wheat flour used in Chinese cooking that is suitable for making outer layer of dumplings and buns. It is also called wheat starch. You can find it in any Chinese supermarket.
Type of flour