FATTY ACIDS PATTERN OF OLIVE OIL UNDER ORGANIC FARMING

Abstract

Organic farming is considered as a mitigation strategy to face adverse effect of climate change and Consumers’ increasing their need for safe and quality food has motivated this research study. The olive oil of the Roman olive trees (Landrace) Olea Europea belong to the Oleaceae family growing under organic farming (in the transition period) conditions in Jordan Ajlun area was extracted by traditional method; warming water to the about 60°C and grounded the seeds make as paste then pour in the warmed water then take the oil layer floated at the surface. The oil was analyzed for fatty acids pattern and compared with Romans trees olive oil grown at Burma Agriculture Station which has organic Certificate according to the Japanese Agriculture Standard (JAS) since 2007. The separation patterns of fatty acids were done by Gas Chromatography (GC). Results showed high levels of unsaturated fatty acids, particularly oleic acid (up to 67.49%), linoleic acid (13.31%) and linolenic acid (0.74%) in the oil of Romans trees growing in Ajlun area, while the organic olive oil from the Romans olive trees growing at Burma Station showed 68.88% of oleic acid, 11.73% of linoleic acid and 0.67% of Linolenic acid. The analysis also showed that the palmatic saturated fatty acid was 12.54% at Burma Station compared to 11.82% in Ajlun area. The medicinal value of unsaturated fatty acids play great role for reducing cholesterol rate that was found in high level of Romans olive trees (landrace).