Chemical and physical characterization of donkey abdominal fat in comparison with cow, pig and sheep fats

The objective of this research was to investigate the physicochemical properties of donkey fat. Results show that donkey fat contains 59.38 % unsaturated fatty acids, 38.37 % saturated fatty acids, and 0.21 % trans fatty acids. The sn-2 monoglyceride present in donkey fat contain 67.91 % unsaturated fatty acids and 30.97 % saturated fatty acids. Donkey fat is also characterized by a total tocopherol content of 8.59 mg/100 g fat (7.90 mg/100 g fat α-tocopherol, 0.51 mg/100 g fat β + γ-tocopherol, and 0.18 mg/100 g fat δ-tocopherol), 0.0032 mg/100 g fat cholesterol, an acid value of 0.091 KOH (mg/g), an iodine value of 76.47 g/100 g, a peroxide value of 0.68 mmol/kg, a saponification value of 193 mg/g, a refractive index of 1.4666, and a specific gravity of 0.9144. The complete melting temperature was 40 C. The content of unsaturated fatty acids (total and sn-2) in donkey fat is higher than cow, pig and sheep, while the content of trans fatty acids is lower. The tocopherol content is also higher in donkey fat compared to cow, pig and sheep fat. Interestingly, the fat with such processing has nearly no cholesterol. Generally speaking, donkey fat could be a good animal fat for human consumption.