Considering the different brands of sardines canned in soybean oil, it was observed that most of the saturated fatty acids present were C14:0, C16:0 and
C18:0, and especially the C16:0 acid. This observation was typical because palmitic acid is the key metabolite in fish (Andrade et al., 1995). Only the brand P presented
significant differences (P < 0:05) for the C14:0 fatty acid (2.92%) when compared to the other brands. Significant differences of the C16:0 and C18:0 acids were not observed among the studied brands (P < 0:05). The levels of the essential C18:2n ) 6 fatty acid were higher than the levels of C18:3n ) 3, with variations from 16.3% to
32.9% and from 2.10% to 4.10%, respectively.