Evaluation of oil composition of some crops suitable for human nutrition

Interest in Canola, Cannabis, Sunflower, Cardoon and Safflower, was focused on the composition of the fat because of their growing importance for nutritional and pharmaceutical purposes. We have therefore begun the analysis and characterization of their fatty acids (FAs) in different oils extracted from those crops to obtain reliable data on their suitability for both human nutrition and industrial or pharmaceutical purposes. The oil content fluctuated from 243 g/kg for Cardoon, 327 g/kg for Cannabis, 358 g/kg for Safflower, 411 g/kg for Sunflower to 488 g/kg for Canola. The ratio of n-6 to n-3 and total unsaturated to total saturated fatty acids ranged from 1.8 to 78.6 and 4.0 to 12.9, respectively. All five crop oils contained a high concentration of unsaturated fatty acids, namely linoleic acid (LA) and linolenic acid (LNA), which are two of the main representative compounds, known as dietary essential fatty acids (EFA) because they prevent deficiency symptoms and cannot be synthesized by humans. They could be considered, per si, functional foods without any biochemical extra additions. Thus, we conclude that whole crop oils do not differ significantly in their FAs composition; consequently, all seem to be suitable for human nutrition after refined procedure. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.