Abstract: Butter oil is heated under high vacuum and sparged for up to about 6 hours to remove cholesterol. Walls surrounding a vapor space above the sparged mass preferably are heated to remove cholesterol with reduced loss of desirable low molecular weight components. Alternatively, the temperature of the butter oil is lowered, and the butter oil is sparged with steam for an additional period of up to about 3 hours to partially hydrolyze triglycerides to mono- and di-glycerides and free fatty acids. The low cholesterol butter oil then is cooled before being exposed to air, thus avoiding oxidation which produces off-flavors. The resulting low-cholesterol butter fat and products made therefrom have composition and organoleptic characteristics substantially similar to those of natural butter oil and butter.

Abstract: Edible oil containing monoglyceride is emulsified with a mixture of cholesterol-containing egg in aqueous solution. Then, the mixture is heated and typically is stirred gently to ensure intimate admixture of the oil phase in the aqueous phase. The monoglyceride serves to facilitate oil/lipoprotein interaction in the presence of aqueous phase. The fat in the egg is partitioned into the monoglyceride-containing oil phase. Agitation is continued for a time sufficient to exchange or extract cholesterol and fat from the aqueous phase to the oil phase. The cholesterol- and fat-reduced aqueous phase is the desired low-cholesterol egg product, and is separated from the cholesterol-enriched oil phase.

Abstract: A process for the production of low-cholesterol milk fat wherein the milk fat is separated into at least one aqueous fraction and a cream fraction. The cream fraction is washed and reseparated a plurality of times to provide a washed cream fraction containing substantially undisturbed milk fat globules and substantially intact milk fat globule membranes. Cholesterol is preferentially extracted from the milk fat globule membranes with an organic polar solvent and without substantial loss of the solid milk fat. Solvent-free, low-cholesterol product is recovered from the reseparated, washed cream fraction. This low-cholesterol milk fat product has composition and organoleptic characteristics substantially similar to those of natural milk fat. The invention also relates to a low-cholesterol milk fat product having composition and organoleptic characteristics substantially similar to those of natural milk fat and produced by the method of this invention.