Detection of adulterants from common edible oils by GC-MS

Edible oils play a tremendous role in the human diet. The production and consumption of edible oils have extensively increased due to their nutritional and economic significance. As a result of exponential population growth, the demand for edible oil has prompted adulteration, which has become a global crisis. Adulteration causes a variation in the fatty acid profiles, unique to each oil. The addition of adulterants is associated with gallbladder cancer, epidemic dropsy, cardiovascular diseases, hypercholesterolemia, and several other life-threatening diseases. Hence, monitoring the purity of edible oils at regular intervals has become inevitable. This study is to evaluate the quality of edible oils such as sesame, groundnut, coconut, mustard, sunflower, soybean, and olive oils by screening their fatty acids and secondary metabolites composition using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and thereby identifying the adulterants in comparison between the unrefined and refined oils. The fatty acid profiles of the unrefined oils were found to be in accordance with the literature survey, whereas the commercially available refined oils were mainly adulterated with palmitic, palmitoleic, stearic, and myristic acids. Contrastingly, numerous health-promoting secondary metabolites have been detected in unrefined oil samples. In conclusion, unrefined oils have nutritional values, and authenticity used for human consumption rather than refined edible oils.