Talk:Fat

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Edit request on 6 August 2013[edit]

Text bellow the second image under "Chemical structure":

-All carbon-carbon double bonds have are cis isomers.

+All carbon-carbon double bonds are cis isomers.

Torkel Bjørnson-Langen (talk) 03:18, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Done RudolfRed (talk) 03:56, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Triglycerides with two carbon chains?[edit]

I'm baffled at this sentence: "The molecules are called triglycerides, which are triesters of glycerol and with two carbon chains (one bonded to the single-bonded oxygen and the other to the main carbon), often formed from the reaction of the carboxylic acid and an organic alcohol."

If "carbon chains" mean the fatty acids then there are _three_ of them and they are bonded to each oxygen of glycerol. If you include glycerol itself as a carbon chain, which it is, then there are four carbon chains but I don't see the point in discussing all carbon chains as relative to the oxygens of the ester bonds.

Also, what does "single-bonded oxygen" exactly mean? In each carbonyl group, there is one double-bonded oxygen; in each ester bond, there is one oxygen with _two_ single bonds; neither is truly single-bonded. Same for "main carbon": is it one of the carbons in glycerol (which one?) or is it the carbon at the alpha end of each fatty acid?

Joe Forster/STA (talk) 11:21, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Response[edit]

I made a number of changes in this article, I hope for the better. Please offer feedback. Tdw1203 (talk) 19:39, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

It looks great, thanks for your edits. --Tom (LT) (talk) 21:23, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

{{Technical}}[edit]

I tagged the article with {{Technical}} because it focuses too much on the scientific definition of fat and not a general definition or one from a dietary perspective. Esquivalience t 01:28, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Removal Request[edit]

Please remove the second picture that shows composition of saturated/unsaturated fats. Overall article tries to be accurate, while the picture demonstrates 'pizza with cheese' under meats section...

Semi-protected edit request on 14 February 2016[edit]

Firstly, the entire "Dietary Considerations" section is completely unsourced and riddled with inaccurate information. Should this entire section be flagged? It seems like the user who added this did more harm than good adding a hole trove of unverified and unsourced information.

"Omega-3 fatty acid fats, even though they are a MUFA, tend to overcome some of the negative effects from Omega-6 dietary fats" should be changed to indicate that Omega-3 are, in fact, PUFA, as following the Omega-3 link will readily indicate.

"There is a world-wide epidemic of obese 6 month old babies. It is likely this was not caused by parents refusing to get the baby a gym membership." This should be removed or at least rephrased due to it being inflammatory/unprofessional. RubiksMoose (talk) 16:40, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes check.svg Done I removed it. Was added a few days ago. Unsourced mostly and used one unreliable source. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 00:34, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

References[edit]

After reading "There are two essential fatty acids (EFAs) in human nutrition: alpha-linolenic acid (an omega-3 fatty acid) and linoleic acid (an omega-6 fatty acid).[2][3]", I wanted to see reference 2 and 3. Where are they? "[2][3]" do not link to references, and reference 2 (there is no reference 3) at the bottom of the page points to a "Food Labelling Regulations 1996" which is not a meaningful reference in the context. Carystus (talk) 03:53, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 September 2016[edit]

Scarce is fat

165.138.31.1 (talk) 16:01, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Not done: This is not an edit request. Topher385 (talk) 16:09, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 May 2017[edit]

Smithyboyanddacrew (talk) 10:00, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Kosack (talk) 10:01, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 May 2018[edit]

82.219.207.31 (talk) 13:04, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I would love to edit this because it has loads of spelling and grammar mistakes such as the bear is so lat and neads a contratt to by this land

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. L293D (☎ • ✎) 14:50, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

"Fat" articles need major reorganization[edit]

There are several articles named "fat", including

And there are also articles

The organization of these articles seems to have been created mostly 15 years ago and evolved haphazardly. It is quite illogical and leads to duplication of material. It needs a major reorganization,
First, "fat" and "fatty acid" are two very distinct concepts, primarily about nutrition and chemistry, respectively. No fat is a fatty acid, and no fatty acid is a fat. Distinct concepts should generally be covered in separate articles.
Second, the meaning of "saturated", "unsaturated", "monounsaturated", "polyunsaturated", and "trans" are properly applied to fatty acids, for which they have an obvious and unambiguous meaning. Their meaning when applied to fats, while very common and most important for most readers, is fuzzy and ambiguous -- because all fats of nutritional importance are triglicerides, with varying percentages of fatty acids of various types, sometimes in the same molecule. Thus the health effects of "saturated" vs "unsaturated" fats in diet are not so much a topic for articles on fatty acids, but for an article on dietary fat.
Indeed, from the chemical viewpoint, the distinction between "saturated fatty acid", "unsaturated fatty acid", "monounsaturated fatty acid" etc may not be significant enough to warrant separate articles for these classes.
Moreover, the current organization results in substantial duplication of material. Every sentence that compares the health aspects of saturated vs unsaturated fats in diet has to be repeated in the "unstaturated fat" article and on the "saturated fat" article, and possibly also on the other "fat" articles. This duplication wastes editor effort, and can lead to inconsistencies or omissions.
Thus I propose the following reorganization of these articles:

  • Move and merge all discussion of health aspects of saturated, unsaturated, and other types of fats in the diet to the Fat article.
  • Do the same with any "saturated vs unsaturated" health information currently in specific fatty acid articles (except information bout essential fatty acids).
  • Rename Saturated fat, Unsaturated fat, etc as Saturated fatty acid, Unsaturated fatty acid, etc, and rewite their head sections accordingly;
  • But have Saturated fat, Unsaturated fat etc. to be redirects to Fat, rather than to those fatty acid articles; resolving current links to one or the other, as appropriate.
  • Move the description of fatty acid codes (like "18:2 cis-9,12" and "ω-3") from Essential fatty acid to Fatty acid

And then possibly also

What do you think?--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 11:02, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

  • Comment Wow! You have done a lot of thinking here, and your argument seems well-laid out. Here is my main concern: as a reader of Wikipedia, when I type in a search term, I usually expect to get brought to an article that has that search term as its title. Obviously, that isn't always the case and for good reason. My concern is that a person looking for information on polyunsaturated fat and being brought to an article on "fat" is going to think, "Ugh, now I have to slog through all the other stuff to get to what I want to know about polyunsaturated fat." I agree with you completely that having multiple articles covering the same basic topic of "fat" is a waste of editor time and can lead to contradictions between articles, but I am less certain that merging so many different articles on fat is going to make whatever information readers are looking for more accessible.A loose necktie (talk) 06:33, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Saturated fat" can be a redirect that points to a specific section of the "fat" article, or of a "Dietary fat" article.--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 08:48, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose for now. There has not been enough discussion among several editors to boldly make the merge among several long-established articles. Read WP:MERGE and be patient until other editors participate. The merge process needs proper discussion and voting before any changes occur. Zefr (talk) 15:17, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  • The "merge" banners have been on the relevant articles for three weeks. The only comment received in that period raised one problem that could easily be addressed with section redirects. I took that to mean that there was consensus for this reorganization, and started to work on it. The above objection was added only after that. Could you please offer specific reasons to oppose the reorganization? --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 20:07, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
Assuming that no comment means agreement with your view is contrary to consensus. If there were no comments, then it was your responsibility to recruit editors to the discussion to obtain different views. The main audience for Wikipedia medical articles is the general, non-science user, explained here under WP:MEDMOS. I've reviewed the different article histories in the bulleted topics above, and feel this consolidation is all a mess for general encyclopedia users. The articles should exist separately as they have historically, and as A loose necktie said above: "when I type in a search term, I usually expect to get brought to an article that has that search term as its title... My concern is that a person looking for information on polyunsaturated fat and being brought to an article on "fat" is going to think, "Ugh, now I have to slog through all the other stuff to get to what I want to know about polyunsaturated fat." Merging different articles on fat ignores MEDMOS and makes whatever information readers are looking for on specific fat topics less accessible. Consolidation under one article also defeats the purpose of serving the common user with clear, plain content better presented as separate articles - WP:NOTTEXTBOOK #7. Recommendation: go to the histories of each fat article and invite up to 10 different editors, or post a discussion at WT:MED for the general medical community to comment on these changes. Zefr (talk) 21:40, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
> The main audience for Wikipedia medical articles is the general, non-science user I fully agree with that, and I am not proposing to make the articles more "scientific". On the contrary, a large part of my edits in Wikipedia (and most of my fights with other editors) have been to make articles more understandable by a more general readership. But that includes organizing the information in a way that gives a clearer picture of the topic in suitable context. The fragmentation and (incomplete, often incorrect) duplication of information in the current arrangement is clearly contrary to that goal. Note that practically all the contents of "Saturated fat" is not about saturated fat per se, but about the relative amount of Sat x Unsat in the diet; and that is practically all the contents of "Unsaturated fat" as well.
> when I type in a search term, I usually expect to get to an article that has that search term as its title That is not a reasonable expectation; Wikipedia has millions of redirects that send the reader to articles where his search topic is better covered and explained than it would be by a specific article. And, as I explained to that user, the effect that he wants can be achieved by a redirect to a specific section of an article. That is what the {{anchor|}} template is for.
> Consolidation under one article also defeats the purpose of serving the common user with clear, plain content better presented I am sorry to say, but the present contents of "Saturated fat", "Unsaturated fat", and other similar articles are awful in that regard. I am confident that I can substantially improve it -- even without changing any of the information -- as part of the merge.
> Recommendation Thanks, but there is no such requirement in the rules. For one thing, an (often unpleasant) basic rule of Wikipedia is that past editors of an article (or subscribers to a particular Wikiproject) have no more authority or "rights" to it than any other editors.
On the other hand, a wonderful feature of Wikipedia is that any amount of editing can be undone with one button click. So I ask only that you please let me try the consolidation, and then decide whether it was an improvement, or should be undone.
All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 19:07, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per Zefr. Need time to discuss & think this through --Distelfinck (talk) 21:15, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. In my opinion, the majority of visitors to these articles are not scientists working in this area, but rather lay public who are looking for specific information. On food labels in the U.S. there is information for "Saturated Fat" and "Trans Fat", and if applies, "Monounsaturated Fat" and "Polyunsaturated Fat" (see corn oil labels). David notMD (talk) 14:44, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
As explained above, those users are better served by redirects to unified articles or sections that discuss "saturated versus unsaturated" fats in diet and "monounsaturated versus polyunsaturated" fats in diet. Likewise, users looking for "omega-3" "omega-6", "omega-9", "omega-7" would be much better served by a single article or section that explains essential fatty acids, fatty acid conversion in the human body, the roles of specific fatty acids in it, and and why those labels are meaningful (or not). All in language comprehensible by general readers, of course.
All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 19:07, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
  • oppose per all opinions above--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:02, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment This is quite a big merge proposal; I think there are good reasons mentioned above for keeping these as separate articles, but I would be interested to know what editors who have worked on these in the past think. For example Benbest has contributed to two of these which have been boldly redirected. CV9933 (talk) 11:34, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment This is a big merge proposal involving more thought than I can wrap my head around at the moment. Concerning the first suggestion, I would prefer a stand-alone article entitled Fat health effects (or a similar title -- that is off the top of my head). Having some comments about health effect in the separate fat-type articles would seem appropriate, with a "Main article" link. Renaming "Saturated fat" to "Saturated fatty acid" seems scientific and desirable. I think it is good to have detailed articles dealing with saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, although these can be pointed-to by "Main article" links. I realize that my suggestions are not in the spirit of mergers, but I am simply expressing my top-of-the-head thoughts, and not making arguments with strong convictions. --Ben Best:Talk 01:34, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Support the proposal as I agree reorganization is needed and I applaud the nominator for taking such a thorough and holistic approach. I disagree with the comment above that no opposition to a merge proposal cannot be taken as consensus (see WP:MERGE and WP:CONSENSUS), however I do think it is best that substantive discussion like this take place before executing such broad changes. Given the above discussion, it might be best to start smaller and propose a small chunk at a time with specific proposals that editors can better appreciate quickly, even if you have a grander long-term vision. Let's remember Wikipedia is not a dictionary; we don't need articles for every sub-type of a concept like fat or fatty acid unless there is so much content that a separate article is justified, with a main link at its section in a parent article. As you discuss, there are two main topics here, fats as a dietary concept, and fatty acids as a chemical concept. Also, we should consider how the article Lipid fits in with all this. Fat as a anatomical concept apparently is covered at Adipose tissue, but let's keep in mind how these concepts relate with appropriate links and redirects. Mdewman6 (talk) 23:32, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Support As a student, I deem ambiguity and equivocality as the main encumbrances for the dissemination of proper information. Thanks to you, the concept between "fats" and "fatty acids" has now evolved within me which I could use for future references. Albeit the minor drawback of conjoining these two articles together would be a hindrance of accessibility, I believe that to attain the information you need, it is required to at least strive and work to locate that data and prove its verifiability to be used to corroborate whatever research theme you are looking for. Alternately, we could also provide a disambiguation page, but I leave that case to the more experienced editors. Best regards Ice bear johny (talk) 06:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Results of merge proposal on consolidating fat articles and October 2020 status of article[edit]

The user who proposed and made consolidations across several articles on fat and fatty acids, Jorge Stolfi, has not contributed to the fat article since 31 August when all the proposed consolidations had already been made without community consensus. Since late August when the above merge proposal was initiated, there are 4 editors opposed, one editor supporting, and 3 who commented, leaning by my interpretation to opposing consolidation, leaving the consensus as 4-7 opposed to 2 in favor. So the question now is whether we leave the article status as it is in October or revert to the July status of the article here, and reconsider selectively adding revisions Stolfi made. My impression is that the Stolfi revisions were aggressive and pervasive, creating the complex article we have now that has redirects from all other fat topics (previously individual articles) to this one, raising the concerns of WP:NOTDIR, WP:NOTTEXTBOOK, and WP:OVERCAT that the present article is excessive and too cluttered for ease of accessing information by the general, non-science encyclopedia user. Zefr (talk) 16:41, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

What of the proposed changes above have been completed? I was brought here because I included the link saturated fatty acid on a page I was editing and found that it redirects (in my view inappropriately) to saturated fat rather than fatty acid. The saturated fat page still exists with a proposed merge banner directing to the discussion above. I assume this has not been completed because there is not consensus for the merge. This is not an RfC, just a merge proposal. If parts of the proposal were completed because there were not yet any objections and this was taken as consensus (after the one week advised minimum), then the discussion should have been formally closed to make this clear before proceeding with the actions, and then any objections be made in a new section. Mdewman6 (talk) 19:33, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Okay, I see now that at least the saturated fat merge was reverted. There are a variety of procedural issues here. It appears the discussion was started on August 8th, but the merge tag was not added until August 20th, then the merge was made on August 30th when the first discussion comment was made. As I said above, the discussion should have been closed declaring consensus before the merge was completed, then a new discussion started to discuss reversion. But since the discussion was not yet closed, there was not formally consensus. Let's remember merges can also be done on a bold, revert, discuss basis, which seems to be where we are at because WP:merge procedures were not completely followed originally. Mdewman6 (talk) 19:42, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
I stand corrected that this was a merge proposal. Restating as best as I can tell in reviewing the current article, all the proposed mergers were done before any discussion occurred, as one can see from the article history dated from early August. User Stolfi proposed the mergers, waited only a few days when no one had responded, then made massive changes, believing that since there was no discussion, there must be agreement to the changes. On 30 August, I objected to this mass editing and merging, and we began this discussion in the section above. The normal merge process has not been followed or closed, and affiliated articles remain as redirects. Zefr (talk) 19:50, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Right. It would have been acceptable to conclude consensus on August 30th when there had been no discussion for 10 days, per WP:MERGE, though I do agree this is more than a simple merge proposal. However, the discussion was not closed and consensus was not declared/determined. So I also think the reversions were justifiable. Now, I think we should revisit the original proposal and consider whether implementing at least some of the proposed changes is worthwhile. Mdewman6 (talk) 20:08, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
To be clear: there weren't any reversions of the Stolfi changes - the content as it exists now is the result of mass importing and consolidation of related articles without consensus. Zefr (talk) 00:11, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Yes, but you did revert the blanking of saturated fat and perhaps others. So only half of the merge has been reverted, leaving I assume a major duplication of content between the pages, and now there has been a month and a half of subsequent edits to fat. I am not really sure how to proceed at this point. Mdewman6 (talk) 19:22, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Conformation of fatty acid and trigliceride molecules[edit]

There are uncountable instances, in Wikipedia and on the internet, of the claim "saturated and trans fatty acids are straight, while cis f ones are bent". And also "saturated and trans fats have a higher melting point because,being straight, they can pack more compactly"
However, I have been unable to find an authoritative source for these claims — one that is based on experimental determination of the shapes and arrangement of the molecules, rather than being just the inference of the author.
A problem with that theory is that any two parts of the chain separated by a double single bond are free to rotate about it; and the energy barriers for the rotation, that come from repulsion between the H atoms on adjacent carbons, seem to be very small. Thus, one would expect that the molecules of natural fatty acids (with only a few double bonds) will be typically twisted in a random configuration, when they are in the liquid state, or in a solution, or in a complex mixture of solid triglycerides like tallow or butter. And saturated fats should be slightly more crumpled than unsaturated ones; and there should be little difference in the amount of crumpling of cis and trans acids.
For the same reason the three chains of a triglyceride should usually start out in random directions, not neatly parallel.
As for the differences in melting points, I can think of at least two alternative "intuitive" theoretical explanations, other than packing density.
This is "Original Research", of course; but it is offered only to underscore that those claims need to be supported by experiment.
Does anyone have such sources?
Thanks, and all the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 20:29, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 September 2020[edit]

change "contxts" to "contexts" in section Conformation 79.248.146.227 (talk) 06:57, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

 Done and thanks Cannolis (talk) 08:04, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 September 2020[edit]

The line "the complete exclusion of unsaturated fat is unrealistic" should be "the complete exclusion of saturated fat is unrealistic". The authors are talking about limiting saturated fats, which are more deleterious to our health than unsaturated fats, so we don't want to reduce unsaturated fats. The authors then go on to state why some developing countries rely on saturated fats.

This advice is often oversimplified by labeling the two kinds of fats as bad fats and good fats, respectively. However, since the fats and oils in most natural and traditionally processed foods contain both unsaturated and saturated fatty acids,[1] the complete exclusion of unsaturated fat is unrealistic and possibly unwise. In developing countries, for instance ,some foods rich in saturated fat, such as coconut and palm oil, are an important source of cheap dietary calories for a large fraction of the population.[2]

SHOULD be:

This advice is often oversimplified by labeling the two kinds of fats as bad fats and good fats, respectively. However, since the fats and oils in most natural and traditionally processed foods contain both unsaturated and saturated fatty acids,[1] the complete exclusion of saturated fat is unrealistic and possibly unwise. In developing countries, for instance ,some foods rich in saturated fat, such as coconut and palm oil, are an important source of cheap dietary calories for a large fraction of the population.[2] Macleme (talk) 03:11, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

 Done. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 09:44, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference stor1996 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference who2003s was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

Semi-protected edit request on 23 October 2020[edit]

This is the sentence to be changed:

"A 2017 review by the American Heart Association estimated that reduction of replacement of saturated fad in the American diet could reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases by 30%.[28]"

Please change sentence to read thusly:

"A 2017 review by the American Heart Association estimated that the replacement of saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat could reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by 30%.[28]"

This change better summarizes the actual findings of the study, which specifically examined the replacement of one type of fat with another, and not the replacement of saturated fat generally. For further reference, view the cited document, which states that the replacement of saturated fat with carbohydrates did not lower risk of cardiovascular disease. 2601:642:C400:91A0:1966:C168:45EC:5756 (talk) 21:51, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done - Zefr (talk) 22:19, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Confusing sentence correction request[edit]

Under the section, Insulin resistance and sensitivity, the 1st sentence should be modified so as to include 'while' to remove confusion. For example, see the bold word below: MUFAs (especially oleic acid) have been found to lower the incidence of insulin resistance while PUFAs (especially large amounts of arachidonic acid) and SFAs (such as arachidic acid) increased it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Creditchoi (talk • contribs) 12:03, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

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