Fats in Food Technology K. Rajah

This book is exciting in a number of ways. First, it is a book about fats in food technology—their roles, behaviour and the benefits that they impart to consumers. It is about fats that are 'naturally present' in foods (e.g. milk fat in cheese) or fats that have been added to help with physical and chemical properties (e.g. cocoa butter in chocolate). It is a book which has useful information about market issues that have driven change and disciplines that have helped to regulate the trade and use of fats and oils in foods.

My initial challenge was to find authors who could write to such exacting and wide-ranging criteria. In this, I have been privileged to be able to gather together an internationally respected team of authors from the United States, Europe and Japan, to contribute, either independently or in joint initiatives, a total of nine chapters. All have senior-level commercial experience of R&D in oils and fats technology and direct exposure to technical developments in world markets.

Consequently, all established products are reviewed systematically and new ideas are presented, not only from the recent literature but often from the personal R&D experiences of the authors. Where efficiencies in processing or economy in the costs of raw materials can be achieved, these have—either implicitly or explicitly, by the choice of appropriate examples or formulations—been discussed within the relevant chapters.