the precipitate with water it may be desirable to treat it further with a weak acid such as acetic citric or the like for end use applications involving mammalian systems it is usually desirable for the hydrogel to be as ph neutral as possible the preferred ph is in the range of ph 5 5 8 5 more preferably ph 6 8 and even more preferably ph 7 8 it is generally accepted that an optimum ph for most orally administered delivery systems intended for humans is ph 7 4 after acid precipitation as described above the ph can be corrected such as by controlled addition of alkali a protocol for predetermining an appropriate amount of alkali is described in example 5 below in the process of final recovery the hydrogel may be washed and dried by methods as known in the art the product recovered after hydrolysis is substantially free of glycerol and any unreacted fatty acids particularly saturated fatty acids the structure of the polymeric compositions of the invention comprises cross linked vegetable oil fatty acid monomeric units the polymer is characterized by a structure comprising at least one polyether backbone a plurality of hydrophobic alkyl groups and.