Microbial lipids for foods

Background Population growth, climate change, and food shortage have led to increased demand for alternate sources of lipids to meet our food and energy needs. Oleaginous microorganisms such as yeasts, bacteria, microalgae, fungi, and thraustochytrids are good resources for producing lipids. Scope and approach Many factors affect the amount and composition of lipid accumulation in microorganisms, such as genetic makeup and environmental conditions during growth, such as carbon and nitrogen sources, pH, temperature, and exposure to natural light in growing media. Food biotechnology advances such as improvements in fermentation technology, genetic and metabolic engineering of oleaginous microorganisms, and the use of low-cost carbon sources, such as food and agricultural waste materials, make lipid production using microbial sources more feasible. Key findings and conclusions Microbial lipid production has some unique benefits for the production of specialty fats and oils, including cocoa butter equivalents, polyunsaturated fatty acid oils and biosurfactants. Moreover, microbial oil production has advantages over plant and marine oils, including lower cultivation costs and the ability to engineer oil structure and thus functionality using genetic modification. Microbial oils production allows for the production of more sustainable and safer oils, without pesticides, herbicides or heavy metals, year-round with a small footprint and without the need for land.