Impacts of roasting oily seeds and nuts on their extracted oils

Abstract

AbstractDuring industrial processing of seeds and nuts to produce edible oils, roasting is often applied before oil extraction. Moreover, seeds and nuts are generally consumed as snack food after appropriate roasting. These processes affect both the seeds and their extracted oils in many ways. Beside changes in macronutrients such as protein denaturation/degradation, oil oxidation, sugar pyrolysis and Maillard reactions, minor constituents such as fatty acids, sterols, phenolic compounds and tocols are also affected by roasting. On the other hand, studies have shown that antioxidant capacity of the roasted seeds and oxidative stability of the extracted oil could be greater than that of the unroasted counterpart. These improvements are attributed to the formation of Maillard reaction products, inactivation of oil degrading enzymes and facilitation of phytochemical extraction as a result of roasting.