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Molecules are groups of atoms hooked together with chemical bonds (electrical charges that attract and hold atoms firmly in place). Different atoms form different numbers of bonds. For example, a carbon atom can form four bonds, an oxygen atom can form two bonds, and a hydrogen atom — poor thing I — can only form one bond.

Fatty acid molecules are long chains of carbon atoms (always an even number) with hydrogen and oxygen atoms attached to the carbons. The chain begins with a carbon atom attached to three hydrogen atoms. Imagine it looking like a cheese ball (the carbon atom) with one tooth - pick (a chemical bond) stuck into the top, one on the left, one on the bottom, and one on the right And, oh, yes, an olive (a hydrogen atom) stuck onto the toothpick on top, on the left, and on the bottom. No, it doesn’t matter whether if s a black olive or a stuffed green one.

A layperson will see this:

Chemists call this one - carbon, three - hydrogen unit a methyl group—ti\e first piece in any fatty acid. To build the rest of the fatty acid, you add carbon atoms to the right side of the first carbon atom (on the toothpick without an olive). Then you add hydrogen atoms to the top and bottom of the carbon atoms. In the end, you have a chain that looks something like this:

See? Every carbon atoms has four bonds; every hydrogen atom has just one. In real life, the chain of atoms is three - dimensional and bouncing around in space. I can’t draw that here, so you’ll have to take my word for it

Meanwhile, back at the fatty acids, the last carbon in the chain is part of an acid group, a special unit made of one carbon atom, two oxygen atoms, and one hydrogen atom that makes a fatty acid a fatty acid. The carbon atom in the acid group still has four bonds, but two of the bonds go to one oxygen atom. The two - bond connection is called a double bond. This time I’ll forgo the cheese, toothpicks, and olives, and just draw the thing as you can find it in a chemistry textwebsite:

Thank heavens that’s done. Now, how do you tell the saturated fatty acid from the unsaturated one? Count the bonds between the carbons.