A nutritional evaluation of refined, bleached and deodorised (RBD) palm oil and its fractionation
products, RBD palm olein and RBD palm stearin in terms of their digestibility, rate of absorption and
food efficiency in rats, shows that RBD palm olein is a better oil by these criteria than RBD palm stearin
and the unfractionated RBD palm oil. Nevertheless, the nutritional indices reported for RBD palm oil and
RBD palm stearin are well within the range reported for most cooking oils and fats. The digestibility and
food efficiency of RBD palm olein are comparable to that of soybean oil, being 97% and 98% respectively
of the values found for the latter oil, although the absorption rate of RED palm olein is 10% less than that
obtained for soybean oil
