Composition of fatty acids in selected vegetable oils

Abstract

Plant oils and fats are important and necessary components of the human nutrition. They are energy source and also contain fatty acids - compounds essential for human health. The aim of this study was to evaluate nutritional quality of selected plant oil - olive, rapeseed, pumpkin, flax and sesame; based on fatty acid composition in these oils. Fatty acids (MUFA, PUFA, SFA) were analyzed chromatography using system Agilent 6890 GC, injector multimode, detector FID. The highest content of saturated fatty acids was observed in pumpkinseed oil (19.07%), the lowest content was found in rapeseed oil (7.03%), with low level of palmitic and stearic acids and high level of behenic acid (0.32%) among the evaluated oils. The highest content of linoleic acid was determined in pumpkinseed (46.40%) and sesame oil (40.49%); in these samples was also found lowest content of α-linolenic acid. These oils have important antioxidant properties and are not subject to oxidation. The richest source of linolenic acid was flaxseed oil which, which is therefore more difficult to preserve and process in food industry. In olive oil was confirmed that belongs to the group of oils with a predominantly monosaturated oleic acid (more than 70%) and a small amount of polysaturated fatty acid. The most commonly used rapeseed oil belongs to the group of oils with the medium content of linolenic acid (8.76%); this oil also showed a high content of linoleic acid (20.24%). The group of these essentially fatty acids showed a suitable ratio ∑n3/n6 in the rapessed oil (0.44).