Fatty Acid Compositions of Olive Oils from Six Cultivars from East and South-Western Algeria.
The characterization of olive oils in terms of cultivars and geographical origin is a matter of current debate. The quality and the peculiarity of olive oil is, in fact, influenced by several factors one of them being the associated cultivar. Algeria currently has almost 32 106 olive trees covering an area of 310,000 ha. Reports of NADP indicate that Algeria will achieve an overall coverage area of 420,000 ha in some years.
The authentication of virgin olive oils has always been a problem of topical interest. The determination of the varietal origin of oils is important for quality control in the food industry and to assure fair trading. We have shown that the fatty acid composition of monovarietal olive oils
or French protected designation of origin (PDO) oils were distinct characteristics of the cultivar or the geographical origin of olive oils.
Azeradj oil is the richest in 18:1ω9 (72.70%), 17:0 (0.16%) and 17:1 and the poorest in 18:2ω6 (4.95%) composition. These results are in agreement with the works of Bakhouche et al,12 on the olive oils of Azeradj variety cultivated in Algeria, where the oleic acid composition ranges between 55 to 83% and low values of linoleic acid. However, to analyse the composition of an essential fatty acid, Blanquette is the most promising variety following the Chemlal and Bouricha.
The fatty acid composition of Bouricha and Chemlal oils are similar. The “morphogrammes” allow the identification of “morphotypes” for each variety of oil. The Bouricha and Chemlal “morphogrammes” confirm the resemblance between them. Moreover, the Blanquette “morphotype” is identical to that of the Tunisian cultivar Chetoui.
Adv Food Technol Nutr Sci Open J. 2017; 3(1): 1-5. doi: 10.17140/AFTNSOJ-3-138
