IMPROVEMENT OF FATTY ACIDS COMPOSITION AND REDUCTION OFCHOLESTEROL CONTENTS IN TRADITIONALLY PREPARED BUTTERAND OIL IN WEST OF IRAN

Background: industrial method of butter production involves direct separation of butter fatfrom the milk, however in traditional-making process of butter and oil in rural regions of kermanshahprovince in west of iran, the milk is converted to the yoghourt by the fermentation andfollowing a few days maintenance of the yoghourt at room temperature, the butter fat is separatedfrom the resulted yoghourt using several hours vigorous shaking. after melting of the butterand separation of its aqueous contents, traditional oil is prepared. a large body of evidenceindicate that the type of fat has greater importance than total amounts of consumed fats with respectto risk of coronary artery disease (cad), hence this study aimed to evaluate trend of fattyacids changes and cholesterol content from milk to oil, during the traditional method.methods: samples of milk, yoghourt, butter and oil prepared from the same bulk of milkwere collected from different rural regions of kermanshah province. to compare the traditionaland industrial methods, samples of the industrially–prepared butter were purchased commercially.the total lipids of samples were extracted and subjected to fatty acids analysis by highperformance liquid chromatography (hplc).results: we found that significant reduction is taking place in the cholesterol and long chainfatty acids contents of butter and oil during the traditional method, while short- and mediumchainfatty acids are significantly increased. the fatty acid composition of industrially-madebutter in our study however, was the same as that of the milk samples.conclusion: compared with the industrial method, the fatty acid composition of butter inthe traditional method has better nutritional value. some aspects of this process may be recommendedfor improvement of the commercial methods of butter production.