Fatty acid composition of Costa Rican foods including trans fatty acid content

To further understand the fatty acid–disease relationships in an epidemiologic context, detailed composition tables are required. The composition of the major saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids that are most abundant in the diet, is available for numerous foods in many countries, but data on the content of individual fatty acids with relative low abundance are scarce. We conducted a study to establish a fatty acid composition database that includes fatty acids with low relative abundance as well as trans fatty acids for the main sources of fat in the Costa Rican diet. Fatty acids were determined by gas chromatography. We present in-depth fatty acid composition tables for foods that are commonly used in Costa Rica. These analyses include information on alpha-linolenic, gamma-linolenic, arachidonic acid and trans fatty acids, which are important for health but where information is scarce. Of particular interest is the high content of trans fatty acids in partially hydrogenated soybean oil in Costa Rica, although decreasing over time. In a period of 10 years the amount of total trans fatty acids in Costa Rican soybean oil has decreased from an average of 20 to 1.5%, while alpha-linolenic has increased from an average of 1.87 to 6.06%. Our data will be of special interest for studies on Latin American countries requiring dietary information.