Lipid Profile and Antioxidant Activity of Macadamia Nuts (Macadamia Integrifolia) Cultivated in Venezuela
Natural Science, 2015, 7, 535-547 Published Online November 2015 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ns http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ns.2015.712054 Lipid Profile and Antioxidant Activity of Macadamia Nuts (Macadamia integrifolia) Cultivated in Venezuela Alejandra Rengel1, Elevina Pérez1, George Piombo2, Julien Ricci3, Adrien Servent3, María Soledad Tapia1, Olivier Gibert3, Didier Montet3 1Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología de Alimentos, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela 2Cirad, UMR Iate, Campus de la Gaillarde, 2 place Pierre Viala, Montpellier, France 3Cirad, UMR 95 Qualisud, TA B-95/16, 73, rue Jean-François Breton, Montpellier, France Received 19 July 2015; accepted 20 November 2015; published 24 November 2015 Copyright © 2015 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract Macadamia nuts (Macadamia integrifolia) grown in Venezuela have showed an average total fat content of 70%. Oleic acid (18:1) was the main monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) (51.3%), followed by palmitoleic acid (16:1, 22.6%). The content of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), C18:2 and C18:3 represented 5.4%. Thus, MUFAs and PUFAs together constituted more than 80% of the total fatty acids present. Trans-vaccenic acid was also present (3%). As regards to other phytochemical compounds, tocopherols and tocotrienols were not found in the sample, but the presence of squalene was detected. The antioxidant activity (44.2%) of the extract was produced by the phytochemicals present. Keywords Lipids, Antioxidant Activity, Fatty Acids, Macadamia Nut, Phytochemical Compounds 1.
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