Contribution of phenolic compounds to virgin olive oil quality

✍ Scribed by Maurizio Servili; GianFrancesco Montedoro

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 185 KB
• Volume: 104
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1438-7697
• DOI: 10.1002/1438-9312(200210)104:9/10<602::aid-ejlt602>3.0.co;2-x

✦ Synopsis

Contribution of phenolic compounds to virgin olive oil quality

Hydrophilic phenols are the most abundant natural antioxidants of virgin olive oil (VOO), in which, however, tocopherols and carotens are also present. The prevalent classes of hydrophilic phenols found in VOO are phenolic alcohols, phenolic acids, flavonoids, lignans and secoiridoids. Secoiridoids including aglycon derivatives of oleuropein, demethyloleuropein and ligstroside, that are present in olive fruit, are the most abundant phenolic antioxidants of VOO. In this paper, the phenolic composition of VOO as well as the agronomic and technological parameters that affect their concentration in the oil are discussed. The olive cultivar and the ripening stage of fruit, in fact, have always been the most studied agronomic aspects that affect phenolic concentration in VOO. However, the malaxation conditions and the extraction systems used to separate oil from olive pastes (i.e. pressure three-phases and two-phases centrifugation systems) are also of great importance.