What is the difference between a saturated and unsaturated fat?

Why are partially hydrogenated fats useful when making potato chips, but not particularly healthy for humans to eat?

Answer 1

Saturated fats have the maximum number of hydrogens possible, while unsaturated fats have a double bond between two of the carbons.

Every carbon wants to have four bonds.
In saturated fats, each carbon has four hydrogens bonded to it. This gives it a straight structure, which allows them to stack on top of each other. Because they can stack, they are solid at room temperature. therefore they are solid in your arteries and can block them, which makes them unhealthy.

Unsaturated fats have a carbon which has a double bond with another carbon. This double bond gives the molecule a bent structure, so they cannot stack on top of each other and are liquid at room temperature. These are the healthier fats.

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Answer 2

Hudson Ansley

Saturated fats have no double bonds between carbon atoms, and their carbon chain is saturated with hydrogen atoms. Unsaturated fats have one or more double bonds between carbon atoms, causing the chain to have fewer hydrogen atoms.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.