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Butters

Bacuri Butter

INCI Platonia Insignis Seed Butter. Also: Bacury butter, Bacuri seed fat, Platonia insignis seed butter, Platonia insignis seed fat.

Calculate a 100 % Bacuri Butter bar

Published values

Saponification value205.1–222 mg KOH/g
Used by the calculator213.6 mg KOH/g (midpoint)
SAP for NaOH0.1522 g/g
Iodine value44.96–55 g I₂/100 g
INS (SAP − IV)164
Melting point42 °C
Unsaponifiable matter—

A bar made of 100 % Bacuri Butter

Hardness 49 29–54
Cleansing 3 below 12–22
Conditioning 40 below 44–69
Bubbly lather 3 below 14–46
Creamy lather 47 16–48

Conventional qualities summed from the fatty-acid groups; a single-oil bar is a reference point, not a recipe.

Fatty-acid profile

Fatty acidPublished range, %Used
Lauric acid C12:0 · saturated ≤ 1.55 1.6
Myristic acid C14:0 · saturated 1–1.24 1.1
Palmitic acid C16:0 · saturated 42.23–55.1 (typical 44.2) 44.2
Palmitoleic acid C16:1 3.2–13.2 (typical 13.2) 13.2
Stearic acid C18:0 · saturated 2.3–6.4 (typical 2.3) 2.3
Oleic acid C18:1 28.8–37.8 (typical 37.8) 37.8
Linoleic acid C18:2 2.3–3.9 (typical 2.5) 2.5
Arachidic acid C20:0 · saturated 0.3–1.36 0.8

Where these numbers come from

Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (Acta Amazonica), open access via SciELO Brazil — Bentes MHS, Serruya H, Rocha Filho GN, Godoy RLO, Cabral JAS, Maia JGS. 'Estudo quimico das sementes de bacuri.' Acta Amazonica 16/17 (numero unico):363-368 (1986/87). DOI 10.1590/1809-43921986161368. · document dated 1987 · read 2026-09-24

Tabela 1 (fatty acids) and Tabela 2 (physical and chemical constants), read from rendered page images. Accepted 27.11.1986.

PlantFAdb (Michigan State University), based on the Seed Oil Fatty Acids (SOFA) database of the Max Rubner-Institut — PlantFAdb datasets for Platonia insignis (plants 10712 and 11474) · read 2026-09-24

Dataset 'BUTTER FROM PLANTS' (1984; SOFA TAB_007028). The other Platonia record (plant 11474) holds the Bentes 1986 values (SOFA TAB_007029) and matches the paper.

Revista de Ciencias Farmaceuticas Basica e Aplicada (UNESP), open access — Feitosa JM, Silva TSA, Xavier AEF, Rodrigues WCS, Silva ACE, Correa CVP, Aguiar FS, Mourao RHV, Oliveira EG, Nunes KM. 'Evaluation of the quality of Amazonian butters as sustainable raw materials for applications in bioproducts.' Rev Cienc Farm Basica Apl. 2021;42:e708. DOI 10.4322/2179-443X.0708. · document dated 2021 · read 2026-09-24

Bacuri column of Tables 2 and 3 and the melting point in the text; saponification value rejected (see notes).

Universidade Federal do Parana (Boletim do Centro de Pesquisa de Processamento de Alimentos) — Guedes ZBL, Santos MSSA, Barroso MAT, Holanda LFF. 'Estudo da fracao lipidica da amendoa do bacuri (Platonia insignis Mart.).' B. CEPPA 8(1) (1990). DOI 10.5380/cep.v8i1.14495. · document dated 1990 · read 2026-09-24

Tabela 1 (refractive index 1.475, saponification 222, iodine 55) and the fatty acids in the text; scanned PDF read as images.

Typical values are Bentes, Serruya, Rocha Filho, Godoy, Cabral & Maia (Acta Amazonica 16/17:363-368, 1986/87; UFPA and INPA): seeds from fruits bought in Belem markets and from the Museu Goeldi campus, n-hexane Soxhlet, 63 % fat. Tabela 1 (fatty acids of the bacuri seed fat): palmitic 44.2, palmitoleic 13.2, stearic 2.3, oleic 37.8, linoleic 2.5. Tabela 2: density 0.896 (40 C), refractive index 1.4570 (40 C), acid value 14.1, saponification value 205.1, iodine value 47.0, 'indice de materia insaponificavel' 26.4. The experimental section instead reports 0.6 g (12 %) of unsaponifiables from 5 g of bacuri fat, so the two statements disagree and unsaponifiablePercent is left null. A white solid that crystallised out of the extract (10 % of it, m.p. 62-64 C) was identified as tripalmitin. The PDF's text layer is an unreliable OCR, so these pages were read as rendered images. Other analyses used for the ranges: PlantFAdb 'Butter from plants' (1984) Platonia insignis seed fat: C14:0 1.0, C16:1 3.2, C16:0 55.1, C18:2 2.3, C18:1 31.7, C18:0 6.4, C20:0 0.3; and Feitosa et al. 2021 (Rev. Cienc. Farm. Basica Apl. 42:e708), a commercial butter from a Belem supplier (2019 lot), Table 3 (re-read from word coordinates): lauric 1.55, myristic 1.24, palmitoleic 10.79, palmitic 42.23, linoleic 3.90, oleic 28.80, stearic 2.52, C20:0 1.36, C28:0 0.12 and a 'palmitic acid derivate (C36:0)' 3.81 (the last two have no key); melting point 42 +/- 0.58 C; Table 2 acidity 15.86 % as oleic, iodine value 44.96, peroxide 9.30 meq/kg, saponification value 297.12. REJECTED: Feitosa's 297.12 mg KOH/g cannot belong to a palmitic/oleic fat - it would need an average chain of about ten carbons - and this dataset already records problems with that paper's saponification column (see the murumuru and tucuma records). Guedes, Santos, Barroso & Holanda 1990 (Boletim CEPPA 8(1), UFPR; a scan, read as images): kernel fat, about 60 % yield, refractive index 1.475, saponification value 222, iodine value 55; its GC-MS identified only palmitic (68.18 %) and oleic (27.81 %) acid, so its profile is not used, but its two measured constants are kept in the ranges. Check: Bentes's profile implies about 200 mg KOH/g and about 50 g I2/100 g, close to the 205.1 and 47.0 measured with it; Guedes's 222 is about 9 % above what its own two-acid composition implies, so the top of the saponification range is the less certain end. Bacuri seed fat is one of the most palmitoleic-rich seed fats known (3-13 %).

This record is part of the open ingredient database (ODbL). Found an error or a better primary source? The dataset is on GitHub; corrections with a document link are welcome.