Abstract
Flaxseed oil is rich in linolenic acid, and being accepted in diet by more and more people. The characteristics of flaxseed oil from two different varieties, namely fibre-flax seed and oil-flax seed, were evaluated. It was shown that fatty acids of flaxseed oil were mainly constituted by linolenic, oleic, linoleic, stearic, and palmitic acids, and the oil-flax seed oil contained more linolenic acid (58.03%) compared with the fibre-flax seed oil (47.37%). The fibre-flax seed oil showed a higher absorbance at 290–800 nm. Thermogravimetric curves showed that the oil-flax seed oil was more stable than the fibre-flax seed oil. Thermal profiles indicated that the fibre-flax seed oil had higher melting peak temperature and larger enthalpy. Rheological studies indicated that the apparent viscosity of the fibre-flax seed oil was higher than that of the oil-flax seed oil. It can be concluded that the oil-flax seed oil is better than the fibre-flax seed oil in terms of edibility.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of China (NCET-08-0537), National Natural Science Foundation of China (30800662), Research and Development Fund for University's Doctoral Discipline of China (20050019029), and Science and Technology Research Key Program of China (105014).
Notes
Li-Jun Wang and Zhen-Shan Zhang contributed equally to this work.