Abstract
Fats and oils, which are present in a wide variety of foods, are classified as
lipids, a group of biomolecules. In addition to storing energy, lipids serve a diversity of
biological purposes. Lipids are not characterized by the presence of specific functional
groups, such as carbohydrates, but by their physical property and solubility. Multiple
compounds obtained from body tissues are categorized as lipids if they are more
soluble in nature in organic solvents. Thus, the lipid classification includes not only oils
and fats, which are esters of the trihydroxy alcohol glycerol and fatty acids, but also
compounds that merged functional groups derived from carbohydrates, phosphoric
acid, or amino alcohols, in addition to steroid compounds such as cholesterol. In this
chapter, we discussed the various kinds of lipids by considering classification and
pointing out structural similarities, history, and nomenclature.