Male Wistar rats were fed for 6 wk either a control low fat diet (1.5% sunflower seed oil) or a diet containing 10% fat: either saturated (coconut oil, cocoa butter) or unsaturated (olive oil, sunflower seed oil). In each dietary condition, in vitro incorporation of exogenously added fatty acids (ranging from capric to oleic acid) was studied in epididymal adipose glycerides. Analysis of variance of data revealed that there was a significant effect of the diet x substrate interaction. When results were expressed per cell lipid weight medium-chain fatty acids (capric and lauric) were esterified to a lesser extent than long-chain fatty acids regardless of the nature of dietary fat (saturated vs. unsaturated). The nature of dietary fat was found to have no effect on the incorporation of medium-chain fatty acids. Feeding saturated fats resulted in an increase of incorporation of long-chain fatty acids into adipose glycerides whereas feeding unsaturated fats did not modify fatty acid incorporation. Modifications of mean fat cell size by dietary fat could not account for all the observed variations.