What else besides commodity oils and fats?

For over 40 years Oil World publications of Hamburg have provided business data on 17 commercial oils. These include 4 animal fats and 13 vegetable oi ls from 12 species. But natural oils are seldom optimum for their ultimate human use. This review refers briefly to the technological methods of modif ying lipids and describes in more detail five biological procedures by whic h a wider range of lipids is being developed. These include the domesticati on of wild crops, the modification of existing crops by seed breeding and b y genetic modification, the use of microbial lipids particularly as a sourc e of PUFA, and the modification of triacylglycerol composition by lipase-me diated reaction.