Chapter 12 - Clove oil

Abstract

Oils and fats play a vital part in human nutrition, large number of bioactive compounds, essential fatty acids, flavoring compounds, and fat-soluble vitamins. Clove oil is a rich source of essential omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Oil from clove may be extracted using traditional methods; however, higher yield and quality may be improved by employing super critical fluid extraction and enzymatic methods for the extraction. For the production of food grade clove oil, it is refined, bleached, and deodorized to remove gross impurities, coloring matters, and odoriferous compounds. Through chemical, enzymatic interesterification, transesterification, winterization/fractionation, tailored fats can be prepared from clove oil with increased functionality and health prospects. Clove oil can be commercially used for the supplementation of bread, cakes, fermented milks, drinking yoghurt, flavored yoghurt, salad dressings, processed cheese, cheddar, mozzarella cheese, etc. As compared to palm oil and palm kernel oil, clove oil has considerably higher concentration of beneficial unsaturated acids. In modern human diet, clove oil is the major source of polyunsaturated fatty acids. Clove oil is used in pharmaceuticals, fortification of foods, animal feed, etc. Clove oil may be used in the formulation of Vanaspati ghee, cheese analogues, coffee and tea-whiteners, chocolates, whipped cream, mayonnaise, pickles, sausages, topping of chapatti (unleavened flat bread), and olein, and super olein fraction of clove oil may be used for blending with soybean, canola, sunflower, cottonseed oils as cooking oils for domestic, industrial, and restaurant applications. Clinical investigations have shown that clove oils have several health prospects such as cardioprotective effects, anticarcinogenic properties, antiinflammatory properties, etc., with no toxicological effects.