ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by fatty acids.

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But rest assured...their diet starts tomorrow.

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Complete the following:

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A saturated fatty acid...?

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And here are the potential answers...

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Yeah, okay...we should probably be referring to these things as "slightly overweight acids"

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or "big-boned acids."

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Hopefully we don't get a bunch of angry letters. But we'll take our chances.

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Okay, so aside from the fact that saturated fats are usually derived from animals, such

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as meat and dairy...

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...and unsaturated fats come from vegetables and plants...

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...the more important distinction between them is their chemical composition.

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Saturated fatty acids have single carbon-hydrogen bonds...whereas unsaturated fatty acids have double bonds.

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So B is true.

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And if we look at the diagram, both fatty acids also consist primarily of carbon and

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hydrogen atoms, so C is also true.

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Just from knowing that those two facts are true, we know answer choice D, all of the

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above, must be our answer.

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Ah, good old logic.

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But... let's take a look at answer choice A just to make sure we understand it.

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Hydro means water and phobic means fear, so...looks like hydrophobic means "scared of water."

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And yes, saturated fatty acids are "scared" of water. Answer's D!

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Incidentally, that fear of water can probably be traced back to that unfortunate cannonball

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episode last summer...

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