Lipid evaluation of cultivated and wild carob (Ceratonia siliqua L.) seed oil growing in Turkey

Studies were carried out on the oil content, fatty acids, tocopherols and sterols in the seeds of two carobs (Ceratonia siliqua), cultivated and wild, from Turkey. The oil yields of cultivated and wild carob seeds were established as 1.73 and 1.82% on a dry weight basis, respectively. The main fatty acids in cultivated and wild carob seed oils are linoleic (49.1% and 51.0%), oleic (30.4% and 26.5%), palmitic (10.3% and 12.0%) and stearic (3.5% and 4.6%), respectively. Tocopherols and phytosterols are important constituents of the unsaponifiable fraction of several seed oils. The major tocopherol in both seed oils was gamma-tocopherol. The composition (mg/100 g) was as follows alpha-tocopherol (69.06 and 70.39 mg/100 g), P8 (22.29 and 24.78 mg/100 g), delta-tocopherol (8.70 and 10.66 mg/100 g), beta-tocopherol (2.30 and 1.85 mg/100 g). The total tocopherol contents had 208.45 and 223.14 mg/100 g, respectively. The total content of sterols of both oils were determined as 16400.94 and 30191.55 mg/kg, with beta-sitosterol as the predominant sterol that accounted for more than 70% of the total amount of sterols other sterols, campesterol (5.33-5.32%), stigmasterol (0.58-11.43%) 7-avenasterol (3.45-3.03%), 7-stigmasterol (2.16-2.4%), and chlerosterol (1.33-1.0%) were detected in both carob oils. As a result, the accurate quantification of these analyses has very important applications for the nutrition sciences. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V.