soapformulator
EN
Animal fats

Turkey Fat

Also: Rendered turkey fat, Meleagris gallopavo fat.

Calculate a 100 % Turkey Fat bar

The saponification value here is derived, not published. No primary document we could use gives one for Turkey Fat, so it is calculated from this record's own fatty-acid composition: chain lengths fix the molar mass, which fixes how much hydroxide a gram of fat consumes. That gives 195.9 mg KOH/g, ±3 %.

That is stoichiometry on a measured composition rather than a guess, and it is about as well determined as a published figure: checked against the 35 Codex oils where both fields come from the same standard, the method's median error is 0.90 % and its 90th percentile 2.74 %, with no meaningful bias. The formula page shows the working. If you have a certificate of analysis for your lot, enter its measured value in the calculator and this estimate is set aside.

Published values

Saponification valuenot published
Derived from composition195.9 ± 3 % mg KOH/g
Used by the calculator195.9 mg KOH/g (derived)
SAP for NaOH0.1397 g/g
Iodine value—
INS (SAP − IV)—
Melting point—
Unsaponifiable matter—

A bar made of 100 % Turkey Fat

Hardness 29 29–54
Cleansing 1 below 12–22
Conditioning 61 44–69
Bubbly lather 1 below 14–46
Creamy lather 29 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
Myristic acid C14:0 · saturated 0.7–0.94 (typical 0.922) 0.9
Palmitic acid C16:0 · saturated 21.59–31.7 (typical 23.335) 23.3
Palmitoleic acid C16:1 6.29–11.1 (typical 7.794) 7.8
Stearic acid C18:0 · saturated 5.182–7.4 (typical 5.182) 5.2
Oleic acid C18:1 27.6–40.752 (typical 40.752) 40.8
Linoleic acid C18:2 18.3–22.22 (typical 19.712) 19.7
α-Linolenic acid C18:3 n-3 0.317–3 (typical 0.317) 0.3
γ-Linolenic acid C18:3 n-6 0.062 0.1
Arachidic acid C20:0 · saturated 1.237 1.2

Where these numbers come from

Food Science and Technology (Odesa, Ukraine; journals.ontu.edu.ua) - open-access journal, CC BY — Poultry fats. Specific features of their composition and characteristics of their oxidation resistance (L. Tyshchenko, O. Shtonda, O. Pylypchuk, A. Menchynska, V. Shakhvorostova; Food Science and Technology 2019, 13(4):69-75; DOI 10.15673/fst.v13i4.1569) · document dated 2019 · read 2026-09-24

Table 1 'Fatty acid composition of poultry fats', column Turkey (percent, 13 acids, printed total 100.00); 'Research materials and methods' for the sample (fat obtained by traditional dry rendering) and the GC. Article history printed: received 21.02.2018, reviewed 12.04.2019, revised 28.08.2019, approved 03.12.2019. Read with pdftotext -layout and -raw in UTF-8 (the isomer labels are Cyrillic and drop out in Latin-1) and checked against a rendered image of page 3. No saponification value, iodine value, melting point or unsaponifiable matter is reported; Tables 2-4 are peroxide values.

USDA Agricultural Research Service - FoodData Central (SR Legacy) — Fat, turkey (SR Legacy, fdcId 173571, NDB 04575) - fatty acid nutrients · document dated 2019-04-01 · read 2026-09-24

Retrieved through the FoodData Central API (/fdc/v1/food/173571, found with /foods/search, dataType SR Legacy). Grams of fatty acid per 100 g of fat, total lipid 99.8 g; renormalised to percent of total fatty acids by the SFA + MUFA + PUFA sum of 95.4 g, arithmetic in notes. Used for min/max bounds only.

Springer Nature - European Food Research and Technology (open access, CC BY) — Assessment of effectiveness of synthetic diacylglycerols as emulsifiers in dispersion systems containing interesterified Turkey fat (Malgorzata Kowalska, Magdalena Wozniak, Serge Tavernier, Anna Zbikowska, Lukasz Pazdur; Eur. Food Res. Technol. 2018, 244:1665-1674; DOI 10.1007/s00217-018-3079-3) · document dated 2018 · read 2026-09-24

Table 3 'Fatty acid composition of the examined fats (mean of three (n=3) measurements +/- standard deviation)', row 'Turkey male fat TMF'; Materials for the sample (turkey male fat from a private ecological farm). The layout-mode text interleaves the Table 3 rows, so the row was read in raw mode, where it sums to 100.1 %. Used for min/max bounds only. The paper gives a crystallization point (-3 C), not a melting point, and no saponification or iodine value for the fat.

Typical values are the turkey column of Table 1 in Tyshchenko et al., Food Science and Technology (Odesa) 13(4):69-75 (2019): goose, chicken, duck and turkey fats 'obtained by traditional dry rendering', studied at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv), fatty acids by GC on a Kupol-55 chromatograph. The paper does not state the number of samples, the birds' breed, age or diet, or which depot was rendered. Turkey column as printed (% of fatty acids, column total 100.00): C14:0 0.922, C16:0 23.335, C16:1 7.794, C17:0 0.185, C17:1 0.089, C18:0 5.182, C18:1n9t 0.231, C18:1n9c 40.752, C18:2n6t 0.183, C18:2n6c 19.712, C18:3n6 0.062, C18:3n3 0.317, C20:0 1.237; the text puts turkey fat at 20.3 % polyunsaturated, 48.7 % monounsaturated and 31.0 % saturated. The isomer labels are printed with Cyrillic letters (n-9 trans, n-9 cis and so on). Only cis C18:1 n-9 is mapped to oleic, cis C18:2 n-6 to linoleic, C18:3 n-3 to linolenic and C18:3 n-6 to gammaLinolenic; C16:1 is printed as a total and mapped to palmitoleic. Not mapped: C17:0 0.185, C17:1 0.089, elaidic acid (C18:1 n-9 trans) 0.231 and trans C18:2 n-6 0.183, together 0.688 %. The mapped acids total 99.31 %. C20:0 is recorded as printed, but 1.237 % is high for a poultry fat, the table has no C20:1 row, and the same table gives 0.582 to 1.520 % C20:0 for the other three fats, so the peak may include a co-eluting acid. Min/max widen the band with two further analyses. (1) USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy 'Fat, turkey' (fdcId 173571, NDB 04575, publication date 2019-04-01), grams per 100 g of fat (total lipid 99.8 g): SFA 29.4 (4:0 to 12:0 0.0, 14:0 0.9, 16:0 20.6, 18:0 6.2), MUFA 42.9 (16:1 6.0, 18:1 35.9, 20:1 0.0, 22:1 0.0), PUFA 23.1 (18:2 21.2, 18:3 1.4, 18:4 0.0, 20:4 0.3, EPA, DPA and DHA 0.0). Dividing each by SFA + MUFA + PUFA = 29.4 + 42.9 + 23.1 = 95.4 g gives percent of total fatty acids: myristic 0.9/95.4 = 0.94, palmitic 20.6/95.4 = 21.59, stearic 6.2/95.4 = 6.50, palmitoleic 6.0/95.4 = 6.29, oleic 35.9/95.4 = 37.63, linoleic 21.2/95.4 = 22.22, linolenic 1.4/95.4 = 1.47 (arachidonic 0.3/95.4 = 0.31, not mapped). FDC prints only totals for 16:1, 18:1, 18:2 and 18:3, which are mapped whole. The itemised acids add to 92.5 g, 2.9 g short of the class totals. USDA publishes grams per 100 g, not percent of fatty acids; the arithmetic is stated so it can be undone. (2) Kowalska et al., European Food Research and Technology 244:1665-1674 (2018), Table 3: 'turkey male fat' from a private ecological farm in Poland, one sample, mean of n = 3 GC measurements: C14:0 0.7, C15:0 0.3, C16:1 11.1, C16:0 31.7, C17:0 nd, C18:2 18.3, C18:1 27.6, C18:0 7.4, C18:3 3.0 % (C15:0 not mapped). That sample is markedly more saturated than the other two (the authors put its saturated acids at about 40 %) and richer in C18:3; it is kept in the band as a feeding difference rather than rejected. Which document set each bound: myristic 0.7 (Kowalska) to 0.94 (FDC); palmitic 21.59 (FDC) to 31.7 (Kowalska); palmitoleic 6.29 (FDC) to 11.1 (Kowalska); stearic 5.182 (Tyshchenko) to 7.4 (Kowalska); oleic 27.6 (Kowalska) to 40.752 (Tyshchenko); linoleic 18.3 (Kowalska) to 22.22 (FDC); linolenic 0.317 (Tyshchenko) to 3.0 (Kowalska). gammaLinolenic and arachidic are Tyshchenko's alone. NO SAPONIFICATION OR IODINE VALUE IS RECORDED: none of the three documents measured either. The recorded profile implies about 196 mg KOH/g by stoichiometry, which the calculator will derive and label as derived; that is not a substitute for a measurement. Checked and not reachable: Poultry Science 31(2):354-359 (1952) 'Chemical Characteristics of Turkey Carcass Fat as a Function of Dietary Fat' (the publisher's site returned 403 to a direct download and it is not in PubMed Central), and two paywalled papers, The Analyst 36:213 (1911) 'Constants of chicken and turkey fats' and J. Am. Oil Chem. Soc. (1943) 'The chemical composition of depot fats in chickens and turkeys'. Kowalska et al. report a crystallization point of -3 C for the turkey fat, which is not a melting point, so meltingPointC is null; no document gives unsaponifiable matter. CosIng has no entry for turkey fat, so inci is null.

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.