ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Characteristics of Chamaerops humilis L. var. humilis seed oil
and study of the oxidative stability by blending with soybean oil
S. Mokbli
1
•
H. M. Sbihi
2
•
I. A. Nehdi
2
•
M. Romdhani-Younes
3
•
C. P. Tan
4
•
S. I. Al-Resayes
2
Revised: 12 March 2018 / Accepted: 18 March 2018 / Published online: 26 March 2018
Ó Association of Food Scientists & Technologists (India) 2018
Abstract Herein we examine the characteristics of date
seed oil extracted from Chamaerops humilis L. var. humilis
seeds (HSO) cultivated in a gardening zone in Tunisia. Its
physicochemical properties, fatty acid composition, and
thermal and antioxidant properties were evaluated and
compared with those of seed oil from another variety of
Chamaerops humilis. The results showed that HSO pos-
sessed higher contents of oleic (44%) and linoleic (20%)
acids than the other seed oil. The total tocopherol and
tocotrienol content was 88 mg/100 g oil, where a-to-
cotrienol (64%) was the major isomer. The total phenolic
(91 lg/g oil) and flavonoid contents (18 lg/g oil) of the
HSO were determined, and its antioxidant capacities,
measured in terms of ABTS and DPPH radical-scavenging
capacities, were 210 lM TEAC/g DW and 4.3 mM TEAC/
g DW, respectively. The oxidative stability index (OSI) of
the oil was 16 h at 110 °C. Furthermore, the OSI of soy-
bean oil was significantly enhanced upon blending with
HSO. HSO exhibited higher thermal stability than the other
oils and significantly different thermal behavior. The
determination of fatty acid composition, physicochemical
properties, bioactive content, oxidative stability, and ther-
mal behavior of HSO demonstrated that this renewable
resource can be used for edible purposes.
Keywords Chamaerops humilis L. var. humilis seed oil Á
Fatty acids Á Antioxidant properties Á Oxidative stability Á
Blending
Introduction
Vegetable oil has become increasingly popular over the
past several decades, resulting in growing global oil crop
production (O’Brien 2009). Oil crops have been increas-
ingly used as raw materials for food, livestock feed, and in
non-food industrial applications.
Oils occur naturally in a wide range of sources, with each
source providing a distinct type of oil. Many seeds and fruits
contain oil, but only a few of these sources are of economic
importance. Thus, considerable efforts have been made to
identify and characterize oil crops that produce oils suit-
able for industrial and fuel uses. When these crops can be
grown in arid environments, they offer an especially attractive
alternative to both edible oils and petroleum (Azeem et al.
2016). Furthermore, wild plant species are typically been used
in traditional medicines (Eromosele and Eromosele 2002).
Date seeds are produced in many regions, and are a
waste product of the production of pitted dates, date syrup,
and date confectioneries from date palms (Abdul Afiq et al.
2013; Habib et al. 2013). Therefore, utilizing this waste
product has important implications for date cultivation and
for increasing income in this field.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this
article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-018-3134-x) contains supple-
mentary material, which is available to authorized users.
& H. M. Sbihi
hmsbihi@ksu.edu.sa
1
Superior Institute of Biotechnology of Sidi Thabet,
University Manouba, 2020 Sidi Thabet, Tunisia
2
Chemistry Department, College of Science, King Saud
University, P.O. Box 2454, Riyadh 1145, Saudi Arabia
3
Laboratory of Structural Organic Chemistry, Department of
Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, University of Tunis
El Manar, 2092 Tunis, Tunisia
4
Department of Food Technology, Faculty of Food Science
and Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM),
43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
123
J Food Sci Technol (June 2018) 55(6):2170–2179
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-018-3134-x
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