Is triacylglycerol an unsaturated or saturated fat?

Question

Is triacylglycerol an unsaturated or saturated fat?

Answer 1

Triacylglycerol in and of itself is not a fat; it's the esterified fatty acids linked to the glycerol backbone that determine the properties of the TAG. There can be one TAG with unsaturated fatty acids linked to it, and another with saturated ones.

Answer 2

triacylglycerol is three fatty acid chains attached to glycerol. to answer this question you have to look at the fatty acid chains themselves. A saturated fat is a hydorcarbon chain that has no double bonds (therefore all carbons have there remaining needed bonds filled with hydrogen, so it is said to be 'saturated' with hydrogen

Unsaturated can be broken down in to 2 types:

Monounsaturated

Polyunsaturated

Unsaturated fat is when the carbon chain has a double bond in it along it's length somewhere. This is where cis and trans fats enter the picture. Trans fats have the attached hydrogens on opposing sides of the double bond site while cis fats have them on the same side (having the bonds on opposing sides is a more stable configuration, harder to break up, and puts the fat in a more solid state).

now I'm getting off topic

to sum up, saturated is when the fatty acid chain has no double bonds. Unsaturated fats have at least one double bond along the carbon chains length.