Is plastic fat rheology governed by the fractal nature of the fat crystal network?

The rheological properties of interesterified and noninteresterified butterfat‐canola oil blends do not seem to be strongly related to either solid fat content (SFC) or crystal polymorphic behavior, but rather to the microstructure of the fat crystal network. The microstructure of the fats was quantified by using fractal geometric relationships between the elastic moduli (G′) of the fats and their SFC values using the approach of Shih, W.H., W.Y. Shih, S.I. Kim, J. Liu, and I.A. Aksay [Phys. Rev. A 42:4772–4779 (1990))] for weak‐link regimes. Chemical interesterification decreased the fractal dimension of the fat crystal network from 2.46 to 2.15. We propose that fat microstructure, as quantified by a fractal dimensionality, could be modified to attain specific rheological properties.