Is unsaturated another name for non- saturated fatty acid?

Answer 1

Yes - although usually specified as monounsaturated or polyunsaturated. Unless you understand some basic organic chemistry it's a little tricky to explain. Basically fatty acids are a long chain of carbon atoms ending in a carboxylic acid functional group, which in structural notation looks like:

C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-COOH

Hydrogen atoms are attached to the "spare" bonds available on each carbon atom. I omitted the hydrogens in the first example for clarity, but the structure is more like:

CH3-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-COOH

A saturated fatty acid has the highest number of hydrogen atoms that will fit on the chain (and so each carbon atom will have a maximum of two bonds with other carbons (like in the first example, above).

A monounsaturated fatty acid might look more like:

CH2=CH-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-COOH

A polyunsaturated fatty acid looks more like:

CH2=CH-CH=CH-CH=CH-CH=CH-COOH

When you see "hydrogenated" monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fat in an ingredient list, it means that industrial chemists have added extra hydrogen to the fatty
acid, and turned it into something chemically identical to a saturated fat by removing those carbon-carbon double bonds (if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...). This is a dodge, because most consumers are aware that polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are healthier for them than saturated fats.

Answer 2

An unsaturated fatty acid has double bonds somewhere in the structure, a saturated fatty acid has only single C-C bonds. Look it up on wikipedia, it's a pretty simple answer.

Answer 3

More than likely, yes. Just be careful when reading the ingredients. Most animal fats are saturated. Most plant based fats are unsaturated (except for palm and coconut fats)

Hope this helps!

Answer 4

Yes.

unsaturated in chemical terms that the fatty acid has trans or cis bonds that can react with hydrogen.

Saturated means that they have reached a state that they can no longer obtain any more hydrogen atoms.