Abstract
In Ivory Coast, there are three different purple maize varieties whose culture is confined to (Central-North) area. These varieties locally called Violet de Katiola are the most widely grown and prized maize in this area because of its important socio-cultural character, its good organoleptic quality, its market value and its therapeutic virtues. The present paper aimed at evaluating physicochemical properties and fatty acid composition of these purple maize oilseeds in order to explore their nutritional and industrial potentialities. Physicochemical properties of the seed oils were: specific gravity, 0.90 to 0.91; refractive index (25 °C), 1.456 to 1.459; iodine value, 102.90 to 124.34 g I2 /100 g ; peroxide value, 4.23 to 4.99 meq.O2/kg ; free fatty acids, 0.74 to 0.86 %; acid value, 2.50 to 2.99 mg of KOH/g and; saponification value, 138.96 to 170.36 mg KOH/g. Results revealed that these oilseeds contained high amount of unsaturated fatty acids mainly consisting of linoleic (42.86 to 45.16 %) and oleic acids (33.27 to 34.98 %) which were desirable from the nutritional and health viewpoints. Palmitic acid was the major saturated fatty acid with contents ranged from 15.51 to 17.06 %. The oilseeds showed high PUFA/SFA ratios suggesting their ability to reduce cholesterol levels and coronary heart diseases in body. All these interesting characteristics confirm their usefulness for different nutritional and industrial applications.
Highlights
Maize or corn (Zea mays L.) is the largest crop in the world and the first cereal produced before wheat with approximately 989. 6 million tons in 2015 [1]
It seems that these variations between oil yields in maize seeds could be attributed to their cultivation climate, ripening stage, and harvesting time [24]
As reported by Falade et al [28], refractive index of oils depends on several parameters such as molecular weight, fatty acid chain length, degree of unsaturation, and degree of conjugation
Summary
Maize or corn (Zea mays L.) is the largest crop in the world and the first cereal produced before wheat with approximately 989. 6 million tons in 2015 [1]. In West African countries as Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria, maize kernels are consumed in several ways: sun dried, cooked, fermented, roasted, pounded or crushed [4]. It is used for food and feed (poultry, pigs, cattle) and as a raw material in some industries (brewing, soap and oil mill) [5]. Badu-Apraku and Fakorede [6] argue that the demand for maize as food, feed, and industrial raw material continues to increase in West and Central Africa This increasing of demand would be fueled by expanding populations and rising incomes in all countries of the sub-region
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