The Importance of the Dietary Level of Fats on their Nutritional Evaluation

Abstract

Butterfat, corn oil, soybean oil and coconut oil were fed to rats at three different levels in the diet, 10, 28 and 35%. The rats gained the most weight on the 35% butterfat diet and the 10% corn oil diet. Slower growth was observed on the diets containing higher levels of corn oil and lower levels of butterfat. Changes in the levels of coconut oil or soybean oil in the diet did not result in significant changes in growth, although in general the gains on the conconut oil diets were low. These observations suggest that since different fats produce optimum growth at different levels of intake, a comparative evaluation of their nutritive merits based on only one dietary level may be misleading.