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Re: foods and feeding

On 4 Jul 2001, at 15:28, George Slusarczuk wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> Aren't FATS the glyceride ESTERS of long chain acids, whether saturated
> or not?
> 
> Aren't LIPIDS, on the other hand, derivatives of fatty acids, such as
> alcohols, aldehydes, amines, glyceryl phosphoric esters, etc?

I think we are going to have to have a biochemist pow-
wow and sort this out.

As I understand it:
Lipids are nonpolar to amphipathic hydrocarbons. They 
include fatty acids/oils, steroids (my favourite!), 
terpenes and lipid vitamins (Isoprenoids).
Fatty acids include:
Eicosanoids (NB in blood clotting...), 
Glycerophospholipids (used to build cell walls), 
triacylglycerols (like what Lee showed us, this is the 
storage form of fatty acids... more on this later), 
waxes and Sphingolipids (vNB in brain function).

Triacylglycerols are as Lee showed and George explained 
to us: glyceride esters of fatty acids. 
R-COO-CH2
       |
R'-COO-CH
       |
R"-COO-CH2 (best viewed with courier as font!)
This is the storage form of fatty acids (in adipocytes 
and muscle tissue) whether they are to be used as fuel 
or converted to phospholipids for cell walls. The fat or 
oil taken in as food comes in mainly as phospholipids or 
hard fat/fluid oil out of the adipocytes. Free fatty 
acids are rare as they will simple diffuse into the cell 
walls and cause endless havoc (which is why they are 
transported in the LDL complexes with cholesterol, a 
steroid).
Ideally we want the HUFAs to go into cell walls and the 
saturated stuff to be used as fuel. Unfortunetly we 
don't live in a perfect world as our bodies (and fishy 
bodies) just use what ever is at hand, chop it into a 
smaller size and paste it into any old phospholipid and 
into the cell wall. (This process if very complicated!)
The harder fats the fish take up simply get deposited 
around organs as the fishes physiology is not addapted 
to handle solid fats.

As a side note what you really want is alpha-mono-
unsaturated fats if you fear a heart attack or heart 
desease etc... This little gem will increase the 
fluidity of your cell walls making life much better and 
longer. This can be found in spirulina.

The reason why HUFAs are so damn NB is that it is very 
expensive for the body to make them so it is much better 
to get them out of the environment. Many organisms also 
can't make them! (We can't make a couple of the really 
nice one :-()and I guess nor can our fish.)

Bye

Tyrone Genade
Southern African Killifish Society Coastal & Offshore Coordinator
AKA 08248
tyronegenade at yahoo_com
http://www.geocities.com/tyronegenade

Please excuse my spelling.
I'm too lazy to use my spell checker.
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