ABSTRACT
Interest in specialty lipids with specific health-affecting components is growing. Consumers demand these oils as food ingredients, and as health supplements and nutraceuticals to control and protect health and support well being. Specialty oils play a different role from mainstream commodity oils, where nutritional and health value dictates their use and market prices. Consumers are willing to pay a higher price for specific nutritional and health properties of compounds present in these oils. With the nutritional and health value of these oils comes processing, which should protect bioactive components, and prevent “processing contamination.” Processing procedures should have a natural connotation when applied to the isolation of oils from oilseeds or other matrices such as cereals. As regards to standard extraction and processing technologies used for mainstream commodity oils, where organic solvents and excessive processing is a common practice, consumers perceive that specialty oils processed in this way will have poor quality and bioactive components will be degraded. Additionally, using organic solvents and chemicals in processing may cause “contamination” with harmful chemicals. Extensive processing of commodity oils may trigger the formation of potentially harmful components, such as polymers formed in deodorization processes. Additionally, extensive processing causes a reduction of the amount of bioactive components such as tocopherols, sterols, and others.
