JAKARTA – Palm oil is potential as a source of functional ingredients for development of functional foods. It is because naturally palm oil contains (i) tocopherol and tocotrienols, (ii) carotenoids and (iii) highly essential fatty acids, which is linoleic fatty acid.
It means the palm oil is also potential as a natural source of Vitamin E, especially tocotrienols. The tocotrienols content of palm oil is higher than those of other vegetable oils. The tocotrienols are not found in soybean oil, canola oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil, while only in small amount in rice bran oil, barley, and wheat germ oil. Generally, the tocopherol and tocotrienols (Vitamin E compounds) are contained in palm oil and other food sources.
Besides, the palm oil is also naturally rich in compounds of carotenoid (pro vitamin A). The high content of carotenoids in palm oil (up to around 500-700 ppm) causes the crude palm oil (CPO), resulted from the squeezing of fresh palm fruits, to have the color of brownish red.
Carotenoids can function double as antioxidant and a source of vitamin A for the human body. Unfortunately, the palm cooking oil widely sold in the market has undergone bleaching and deodorization in such a way that causes drastic reduction of the carotenoid content. Therefore, efforts should be pursued in the palm oil industry to modify such process to allow much higher content of carotenoids retained in red cooking oil.
In line with that, the government and the palm oil industry players need to educate the consumers on the advantages of red cooking oil. The red cooking oil, which is produced with special refining technique to avoid the loss of carotenoids, needs to be promoted in Indonesia as it is potential as an abundant source of vitamin A and E for the public. It becomes more relevant to Indonesia by considering the fact that the country is still dealing with health problems caused by the shortage of vitamin A, which should draw the attention of the government.
As mentioned before, the squeezing of fresh palm fruits will result in crude palm oil (CPO) in color of brownish red. The CPO still contains a number of non-oil components (acylglycerol), such as free fatty acids, water, some metallic elements, and other impurities. It causes CPO to have unwanted odor and very low stability.
To maintain its quality and stability, it needs a number of further purification processes, such as degumming, neutralization and deodorization to produce refined bleached deodorized palm oil (RBDPO). The RBDPO is odorless and more stable in storage.
RBDPO contains various triacylglycerol molecules, and can be fractionated into several parts with different physical characteristics. The fractionated parts can be used for various needs of special and different applications.
In addition to that, the RBDOP can also be used to undergo further processes, such as blending process, inter-esterification and trans-esterification to produce oil with certain characteristics according to the purposes of applications. (*)
(Quoted from the book titled “Brief Overview of Unique Characteristics of Palm Oil”, authored by Professor Purwiyatno Hariyadi)
Source: sawitindonesia.com