A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN SUNFLOWER OIL AND FLAXSEED OIL AS OILS WITH HIGH NUTRITIONAL VALUE

The types of fats that people eat have a significant impact on public health and can lead to various diseases, including fatty liver and coronary heart diseases. Fats are an indispensable part of human diets. The point of the study was to compare the nutritional value and constituents of sunflower, and flaxseed oils—two types of oils that are frequently used in Egyptian cuisine. Every oil's refractive index, color, oxidative stability index, saponification value, iodine value, acid value, ester value, peroxide value, and unsaponifiable matter (%) were estimated. The GC was used to estimate the fatty acid composition of these oils as well as the amount of sterols contained in each one; while the HPLC was used to estimate fat-soluble vitamins in sunflower oil and flaxseed oil. The most important results indicated that linoleic acid was the largest component in sunflower oil (54.5 %), while alpha-linolenic acid was the largest component in flaxseed oil (51.49 %). For sterols, β-sitosterol (57.63 %), stigmasterol (24/09%), and campesterol (9.5 %), were the largest components in sunflower oil; while β-sitosterol (51.52 %), campesterol (28.6 %); Delta 5-avenasterol (10.8 %) and stigmasterol (8.51%) were the largest sterols in flaxseed oil. The results of the vitamin analysis in these oils revealed that, vitamin D at 11.9 ppm, is the second most abundant vitamin in sunflower oil, while vitamin E is the most abundant at 626 ppm. In the same way, flaxseed oil had 2962 ppm of vitamin E and 46.7 ppm of vitamin D concentration. The data unmistakably demonstrate sunflower oil's high omega-6 fatty acid content, while flaxseed oil stood out for having high omega-3 fatty acid content. These oils are therefore well suited for use in nutrition, and further research is required to determine the ideal ratios for this combination of oils to be used in biological experiments