Detection of animal fats in butter by differential scanning calorimetry: a pilot study

Because of its high price, butter has always been the object of adulteration by addition of less expensive vegetable or animal fats. Although a number of methods have been proposed for the detection of butterfat adulteration, none has found widespread use. For this reason, a study was conduced to assess the use of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) for detecting the presence of added animal fat, i.e., chicken fat, in butter. The results obtained show that DSC is an efficient method for characterizing pure animal fats as well as their mixtures. Furthermore, the accuracy with which data are obtained, in combination with the sensitivity of DSC to subtle changes in chemical composition of the sample, makes DSC an attractive possibility for development as a quality control procedure.