Abstract
THE present study intends to determine the effect of punicalagin as natural antioxidant on stabilising canola oil during 90 days storage and also to compare its strength with the synthetic antioxidant Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT). Canola oil sample was categorized into three groups; pure oil (control), oil with Punicalagin (600 ppm) and oil with BHT (600 ppm). Peroxide value (PV) and free fatty acids (FFA) were used to estimate the primary products of oil oxidation while Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances (TBARS) and P-Anisidine values (PAV) were used to estimate the secondary products. Finally, total oxidation (TOTOX) was calculated to evaluate the overall oxidation of oil samples. The results showed that PV, FFA, PAV and TOTOX were significantly increased in all canola oil samples with increased in storage time. In contrast, The TBARS values continued to increase from the starting storage period until 60 days and then decreased significantly until the end of the storage period. Punicalagin effectively reduces the production of the first and second oxidation products of canola oil during storage as indicated by the reduction in the PV, FFA, PAV and TOTOX of canola oil. When compared to BHT, punicalagin showed similar effect in inhibiting primary oxidation products whereas BHT showed stronger effect in reducing the secondary oxidation products. In conclusion, punicalagin can be used as a suitable replacement for chemically synthetic antioxidants on stabilising canola oil. Future studies should focus on evaluating the effect of higher concentrations of punicalagin to help in reducing the secondary oxidation products.