NUTRITIONAL VALUE OF PALM OIL

Palm oil (Elaeis guineensis) is the world's largest edible oil in terms of production and trade. Palm oil's balanced fatty acid composition makes it one of the most versatile oils for food industry applications (Oyewole, and Amosu, 2010). Moreover, crude palm oil is also one of the richest dietary sources of pro-vitamin A and vitamin E (Mensik, 2016). Palm oil also known as Red palm oil is a strong, savory and earthy tasting vegetable oil which is derived from the palm fruit of Elaeis guineensis. It is often used for cooking purposes.

Naturally, it is reddish in color due to the high content of beta carotene. It is rich in saturated vegetable fats and becomes semi solid at the room temperature. Due to the saturated vegetable fats, it helps to increase LDL cholesterol and prevent the risk of cardiovascular disease. It consists of fatty acids along with cholesterol. It has high content of saturated fat. As it is versatile, it is used in detergents, food products and cosmetics. Nowadays it is highly used as biofuel (Ebong, Owu and Isong , 1999). There is a great deal of confusion regarding the nutritional value and health effects of palm oil. The controversy and conflicting views still continue on whether or not palm oil is atherogenic. Based on current evidence, it would appear that palm oil has both favourable and unfavourable effects (Edem, 2002). The nutritional and health properties of palm oil depend not only on the amounts consumed and the other components of the diet, but also on the extent of processing and on the fractions considered.

The crude (red) palm oil (RPO) is very distinct from the refined product and its high content of antioxidants including vitamin E and provitamin A may be responsible for health benefits that are no longer present in the refined oil as more than half its antioxidants have been destroyed. The health aspects of palm oil were discussed in previous chapters. It is suspected that several publications may have tended to be positively biased due to the fact that the palm oil industry has been very active at sponsoring research, as reported in two large systematic reviews and meta-analyses (Fattore et al., 2014; Sun et al., 2015). The primary focus of the present chapter is on the nutritional value of crude RPO, primarily as a source of vitamin A