Basic research in the field of fats

COMMENTARY, according to the dictionaries, is essentially a series of explanatory notes, and until now this editorial page has really been something much better. I t has been a monthly account of activities of special interest to readers of the Journal , regularly written by someone with a high degree of responsibility for the activity reported. Lacking any current responsibility, I will delve into the past 35 years and at tempt a few comments--below the level of comm e n t a r y o n the progress of basic research in the field of fats. From efforts in the early 1920's to absorb the scientific background of soap and edible fat manufacture my best-remembered impressions come from t ry ing to take a close look at two very important mixing operations, soap crutching and the preparat ion of plastic shortening. We seemed to have a fair ly good working knowledge of each molten fat mixture from which these products were made. However, as the mixing operations proceeded, we knew less and less about what we were mixing with what, and our ignorance of the component parts of the final product, soap and shortening, was really profound. I believe that the basic research most needed by manufacturers in our field 35 years ago was systematic s tudy of the individual triglycerides in our fat fixtures and of the physical forms of both glycerid~s and soaps. The progress made in this area has been quite gratifying. Notwithstanding the remaining gaps in our information and some disagreements about the polymorphic forms of both glycerides and soaps, we have begun to make good use of the data now available. One inspiring feature of this research was the ability of laboratories in this country to agree on essentials in their early independent work.