Engineering intervention for production of virgin coconut oil by hot process and multivariate analysis of quality attributes of virgin coconut oil extracted by various methods

Abstract

ICAR-Central Plantation Crops Research Institute, India, has designed and developed a virgin coconut oil (VCO) cooker for the extraction of oil by the hot process. However, a number of VCO production processes being followed in India and elsewhere cause variations in the physicochemical properties, which in turn potentially affect the nutritional and medicinal properties of VCO. The physical and biochemical properties of VCO from the hot process (VCO-Hot), fermentation (VCO-Fer), expelled from dried gratings (VCO-EDG), centrifugation (VCO-Cen), and conventionally prepared copra coconut oil (CCO) were investigated in light of the design concept of the VCO cooker. The nutritionally important total phenolic content (mg GAE/100 g) and antioxidant capacity of all the VCOs were found to be in the range of 0.446 ± 0.041 (VCO-Cen) to 2.867 ± 0.152 (VCO-Hot) and 3.87 mM Trolox equivalent (TE) (VCO-Cen) to 11.31 mM TE (VCO-Hot), respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that quality attributes viz., total phenol, total flavonoid, and cupric ion reducing antioxidant capacity of VCO-Hot defined by principal component 1. Hierarchical clustering showed that the VCO-Hot belonged to the group with high total phenolic and flavonoids content and strong antioxidant capacity. Comparative biochemical properties along with multivariate analysis differentiated the various VCO samples.