Fat in the context of "Lubricant"

Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin and contains essential nutrients such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells to provide energy, maintain life, or support growth. Different species of animals have different feeding behaviours that satisfy the needs of their metabolisms and have evolved to fill specific ecological niches within specific geographical contexts.

Omnivorous humans are highly adaptable and have adapted to obtaining food in many different ecosystems. Humans generally use cooking to prepare food for consumption. The majority of the food energy required is supplied by the industrial food industry, which produces food through intensive agriculture and distributes it through complex food processing and food distribution systems. This system of conventional agriculture relies heavily on fossil fuels, which means that the food and agricultural systems are one of the major contributors to climate change, accounting for as much as 37% of total greenhouse gas emissions.

An omnivore (/ˈɒmnɪvɔːr/) is an animal that eats both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nutrients and energy of the sources absorbed. Often, they have the ability to incorporate food sources such as algae, fungi, and bacteria into their diet.

Omnivores come from diverse backgrounds that often independently evolved sophisticated consumption capabilities. For instance, dogs evolved from primarily carnivorous organisms (Carnivora) while pigs evolved from primarily herbivorous organisms (Artiodactyla). Despite this, physical characteristics such as tooth morphology may be reliable indicators of diet in mammals, with such morphological adaptation having been observed in bears.

Lipophilicity (from Greek λίπος "fat" and φίλος "friendly") is the ability of a chemical compound to dissolve in fats, oils, lipids, and non-polar solvents such as hexane or toluene. Such compounds are called lipophilic (translated as "fat-loving" or "fat-liking"). Such non-polar solvents are themselves lipophilic, and the adage "like dissolves like" generally holds true. Thus lipophilic substances tend to dissolve in other lipophilic substances, whereas hydrophilic ("water-loving") substances tend to dissolve in water and other hydrophilic substances.

Lipophilicity, hydrophobicity, and non-polarity may describe the same tendency towards participation in the London dispersion force, as the terms are often used interchangeably. However, the terms "lipophilic" and "hydrophobic" are not synonymous, as can be seen with silicones and fluorocarbons, which are hydrophobic but not lipophilic.

Lipids are a broad group of organic compounds that include fats, waxes, sterols, fat-soluble vitamins (such as vitamins A, D, E and K), monoglycerides, diglycerides, phospholipids, and others. The functions of lipids include storing energy, signaling, and acting as structural components of cell membranes. Lipids have applications in the cosmetic and food industries, and in nanotechnology.

Lipids are broadly defined as hydrophobic or amphiphilic small molecules; the amphiphilic nature of some lipids allows them to form structures such as vesicles, multilamellar/unilamellar liposomes, or membranes in an aqueous environment. Biological lipids originate entirely or in part from two distinct types of biochemical subunits or "building-blocks": ketoacyl and isoprene groups. Using this approach, lipids may be divided into eight categories: fatty acyls, glycerolipids, glycerophospholipids, sphingolipids, saccharolipids, and polyketides (derived from condensation of ketoacyl subunits); and sterol lipids and prenol lipids (derived from condensation of isoprene subunits).

Animal fats are lipids derived from animals which are used by the animal for a multitude of functions, or can be used by humans for dietary, sanitary, and cosmetic purposes. Depending on the temperature of the fat, it can change between a solid state and a liquid (oil) state. Chemically, both fats and oils are composed of triglycerides. Although many animal parts and secretions may yield oil, in commercial practice, oil is extracted primarily from rendered tissue fats from livestock animals like pigs, chickens and cows. Dairy products yield animal fat and oil products such as butter.

Hard soaps (Latin: sapo medicatus), also termed soda soaps in older terminology, are categorized under soaps and are typically sodium salts of fatty acids. They vary in color from white to brownish and have a fatty acid content ranging from 72 to 75%. These soaps are typically made from lower-quality fats. Hard soaps serve as the foundation for products frequently labeled as fine soaps, which are fortified with nourishing additives, perfumes, and dyes.

Cotton (from Arabic qutn) is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor percentages of waxes, fats, pectins, and water. Under natural conditions, the cotton bolls will increase the dispersal of the seeds.

The plant is a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, Africa, Egypt and India. The greatest diversity of wild cotton species is found in Mexico, followed by Australia and Africa. Cotton was independently domesticated in the Old and New Worlds.

Food energy is chemical energy that animals derive from food to sustain their metabolism and muscular activity. This is usually measured in joules or calories.

Most animals derive most of their energy from aerobic respiration, namely combining the carbohydrates, fats, and proteins with oxygen from air or dissolved in water. Other smaller components of the diet, such as organic acids, polyols, and ethanol (drinking alcohol) may contribute to the energy input. Some diet components that provide little or no food energy, such as water, minerals, vitamins, cholesterol, and fiber, may still be necessary for health and survival for other reasons. Some organisms have instead anaerobic respiration, which extracts energy from food by reactions that do not require oxygen.