Molecular Finger Printing of Nutra‑Coconut Oil with Improved Health Protective Phytoceuticals and its Efficacy as Frying Medium

Coconut oil is rich in medium chain triglycerides
but lacks polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and bioactive
phytoceuticals. In the present work nutra-coconut
oil was prepared by blending coconut oil and flaxseed oil
(70:30) and adding 3000 ppm of flaxseed cake concentrate
using ethanol, methanol and 20 % aqueous ethanol. The
concentrate prepared from flaxseed was from ethanol as it
gave maximum yield. The different bio-active molecules in
flaxseed concentrate observed are polyphenols (39.04 %),
tocopherols (4.37 %), ferulic acid (0.17 mg g−1), p-coumaric
acid (2.24 mg g−1), chlorogenic acid (16.11 mg g−1),
gallic acid (8.58 mg g−1), sinapic acid (0.64 mg g−1) and
secoisolariresinol (30.13 mg g−1). The nutra-coconut
oil was found to have polyphenols (2.86 %), tocopherols
(442.96 ppm) and antiradical activity (94 %). The PUFA
content was found to increase in nutra-coconut oil significantly
(p < 0.05) (2–22 %). The FT-IR spectra of nutracoconut
oil revealed that the peak at 3009 and 1651 cm−1
was associated with the presence of unsaturated fatty acids.
There was no significant (p > 0.05) difference observed in
sensory attributes of snack food fried using coconut oil and
nutra-coconut oil indicating that the later could be used as
a frying medium and useful for food processing industries.