Preface Oilseeds and their products have been playing an important role in our day to day lives since ages. They serve as sources of major and micro nutrients to humans and animals and help in their growth and health management. In this aspect they are better than cereal grains due to their better and balanced nutrient composition. As organic manures, again, they help in increased crop production. Various phytochemicals and oleochemicals are useful as medicines and cosmetics. Oils, proteins and their value added products have wide ranging industrial uses. They have recently gained importance as diesel substitutes. All these aspects with respect to the cultivated and other minor oleaginous sources have been presented and discussed in this book. Post harvest handling and processing to obtain good quality oilseed products and their utility also find a place. Antinutrients and their detoxification for better utilization of oilseed products have also been covered. Methods for evaluation of various quality parameters of oilseeds, oil and oil cakes are also included in the book. It is expected that this book will be useful to students, researchers and all those involved in oilseeds management. I am greatly indebted to Padmashri Dr. M.V. Rao, Dr. P.S. Reddy and Dr. M.K. Chakraborty who have encouraged me in my career as an oilseed scientist in the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. I sincerely thank the Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India for the financial support under their USERS scheme to write this book. I acknowledge the infrastructural facilities provided to me at the Directorate of Oilseeds Research, Hyderabad. I also thank my wife and sons for their help and support while writing this book. This is a first major and single handed effort by me. I would greatly appreciate useful suggestions to improve the content and quality of this book in the later editions.

Human being as a hunter has depended mostly on animal food and some fruits. With the progress of civilization, he settled down and started agriculture around 7000-10,000 B.C. He started depending on plant grains to take care of his energy and nutritional requirements in addition to animal foods. Initially cereal grains must have mostly accounted for his staple food requirements. Taste and health requirements must have prompted him to diversify his crop production programme. It is this need that must have made him to cultivate oilseeds, fibre and other crops. Oilseeds, thus, have been under cultivation since antiquity. Rapeseed and sesame have been described in the Indian Sanskrit writings of 2000 BC. Historically, extraction of oil seems to have been a batch process. Seeds kept in gunny bags or boxes were pressed to remove oil. The separated oil on clarification was used for food and non food purposes. The resulting cakes were utilized as animal feed or thrown away into fields which helped in improving the soil fertility. Human beings slowly discovered the uses of oil and other oilseed products for various food and non-food purposes. There are several species of plants in the world whose oil can be utilized for human consumption. Though around 40 oilseeds are known, only around a dozen oilseed crops have become commercially important. There are ten seed crops and three tree crops. The seed crops are groundnut, rapeseed- mustard, sesame, soybean, sunflower, cottonseed, safflower, niger, castor and linseed. These are mostly annual crops. The three major tree oil crops are palm, olive and coconut.

Groundnut Groundnut roundnut is believed to have originated in Brazil and later spread to many countries all over the world. It is known to humanity since 950BC. Groundnut crop and its products have multiple uses. Being a leguminous crop it enriches the soil with nitrogen through symbiotic biological fixation by rizhobium. The economic product, groundnut in shell, contains the seeds, which are edible. The shell as well as the haulms serve as fuel and fodder. The seed oil serves as a good cooking oil while the cakes are good sources of protein for animals and even humans. Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L,) belongs to leguminosae family and papilionacea sub family. It consists of two sub species each with two varieties. The first one hypogaea has the variety hypogaea (virginia group) and variety hirsuta kohla while the second one fastigiata has the variety fastigiata (valencia group ) and the variety vulgaris (spanish group). Hypogaea varieties are spreading types with branching and lack infloresence on the main stem. They are of longer duration and have fresh seed dormancy . Varieties of the fastigiata are of erect type with branching and flowering on the main stem also. The crop is of shorter duration than hypogaea types, but with little fresh seed dermancy. The major groundnut producing countries of the world are China, India, Nigeria, U.S.A. Indonesia, Argentina, Sudan, Senegal and Myanmar. The cultivation is spread in tropical and sub-ropical regions. Groundnut is a self- pollinated crop and pollination takes place in the morning. After fertilization an elongated stalk namely peg develops which enters the soil, bends horizontally and swells to become a pod. Within the pod, two, three or four kernels are formed. The crop can be grown under rainfall conditions ranging from 50-125cm, with good distribution during flowering and pegging stages. Sandy loams, loamy soils, and black soils with good drainage are suitable for growing the crop.

In addition to cultivated oilseeds, many other seeds and related plant products serve as sources of vegetable oils. They are obtained from large trees, shrubs or from different crops and their products. It may be the seeds or the husk, or the germ or other parts of the fruit or seed which are rich in oil. These are in general, referred to as non-conventional vegetable oil sources. They are highly important for the food/feed and non-food industries. Non- food and industrial uses are plenty. But for the availability of these non- traditional oilseeds and their products, there would have been great pressure on the cultivated seeds. The products, mainly oil, help run our machines and protect them from getting rusted. Some of them protect our crops from pests and deseases. They even serve as beauty aids in the form of cosmetics. Some of them serve as sources of medicine for men and animals. In recent years, some non-conventional/ non-edible oilseeds have become the raw material for biofuel/bioenergy. They have gained prominence, due to shortage of conventional oils. Seeds of more than 100 species occurring in the wild or cultivated are known to contain oil in considerable quantities. There is a vast scope for production and utilization of oil from these sources (Ambasta, 1986, Bhattacharya, 2002 and Vimal and Naphade, 1980). In this chapter, the major non-conventional oilseeds of tree origin, by product oilseeds or other minor sources, are being dealt with. They are ricebran, corn, sal, mahua, jatropha, kokum, melia, rubber, mango kernel, kusum, simarouba, neem, karanj, crambe, moringa, tumba, jojoba and tobacco seed etc. Emphasis is given to the composition and quality of oil, cake and other plant parts. Their food, non-food and medicinal uses are presented. Oil extraction and related post harvest technological aspects are also discussed.

Post Harvest Technology Introduction The demand for edible oil has grown with the increase in world population. Improvement in living standards have made the population increase the consumption of oils and fats. It also has become more discriminating with respect to the oil quality. Oil producers, have to meet the increasing demand for edible oil, and improve product quality and variety as these have become major factors in the market-place. Agriculture has been tuned through selective seed breeding and improved crop production practices to take care of the increasing demand. The emphasis has been to improve yield per hectare or tolerance to climatic variations. The ability to modify seed through traditional breeding and biotechnological approaches promises a revolution in agriculture. Using various approaches, not only quantitative improvement but also the qualitative changes especially fatty acid changes have been brought about. Customer support is needed for the genetically modified crops. A lot of controversy exists at present in accepting genetically modified crops. This aspect has to be studied in depth and needs to be resolved at the appropriate level as quickly as possible. A prerequisite for the production of top quality oils and meals is a high quality raw material. Some attempts have been made to improve the physical characteristics of oils and meals through genetic, agronomic as well as through post production handling and processing technologies. The harvested quality grain should not be damaged during transportation, storage and processing. To produce a crude oil, the industry uses a number of processing steps, the application of which depends on the type of seed and the scale of the operation. The purpose of Post Harvest Technology of oilseeds is to recover the maximum quantity of good quality oil and also make the deoiled cake useful as food or feed. Oil in oilseeds is located in spherosomes, which are the oil bodies (Salunkhe et al, 1992). When seeds are broken into small particles and the cells get ruptured the oil becomes available and is easily extracted. From the time of harvest, till the seeds are fed to the oil extracting machines, various processes are carried out to make good quality of oil available to the consumer apart from providing remunerative prices to the producer, namely, the farmer. The various steps involved in the oil extraction are proper harvest, drying, storage, seed cleaning, heat treatment and different types of machinery. The basic objective of every step in the post harvest technology is to minimize losses and to sustain or improve the quality of the product.

Nutritional Quality of Edible Oils Fats improve the taste and flavour of foods. Fatty foods satiate a hungry person fast because fats remain in the stomach for a longer period than either protein or carbohydrate (sugar) foods. Fats also carry essential vitamins like A, D, E and K. They also provide the body with essential fatty acids. Thus, fats have a very important role to play in human nutrition. Spectrum of Fats and Oils It is not just the butter and ghee that provide us the necessary fats. Vegetable oils, meat and fish too add fats in our diet. There is an array of vegetable oils available to human beings. They are groundnut, rapeseed, sesame, sunflower, safflower, soybean, niger, cotton seed, coconut, palm and rice bran oils. Ghee(butter fat), however, is the main animal fat utilized widely. The quality and composition of these oils vary as also the preference of people.

Antinutrients Safety is the most important aspect among all the quality attributes of food. Food can be considered safe, only if it does not contain any factor which is hazardous to human or even animal health. The various factors which affect the safety of the foods may be broadly classified into three categories. The first category includes the toxic factors occurring naturally in foods. The second category comprises a group of incidental contaminants which find their way at various stages of processing, manufacture, preservation and storage of foods and the third category includes harmful intentional additives or adulterants. Various categories of anti-nutritional factors are present in the traditional and non-traditional oilseeds, oils and oilcakes. Some of them are heat-labile and do not pose any harmful effects in the body, while the heat-stable factors may cause deleterious effects in human beings and animals. They belong to different groups of compounds. It is necessary to know their behaviour, significance and toxicities. Their avoidance or elimination is important to protect human and animal health.

Methods of Analysis Organic material especially, seeds, grains, fruits and nuts contain mainly three groups of compounds. They are carbohydrates, proteins and fats/oils, mostly in that order. They also contain 3-5% minerals and smaller quantities of vitamins and other minor constituents. Cereal grains contain more of carbohydrates while oilseeds contain more oil. Tree nuts and even oilseeds may contain 30-50% protein while cereal grains contain 5-8% protein. The starch and sugar contents of oilseeds may be less than 10% while the oil content of cereal grains ranges around 5%. The actual content and the composition of these groups of compounds really account for the quality as well as their commercial value. The composition and quality of grains and other plant products vary with respect to their genetic background, location or the soils under which they are grown, season or the environment, the maturity of the grain/product or its harvest stage and the post harvest processes including storage etc. Crop scientists have in recent years been bringing out made to order or designer seeds, whose quality and composition need to be examined to satisfy the needs of the quality conrol and consumer requirements. Keeping this aspect in view this chapter has been designed. As this book deals with oilseeds, emphasis has been placed on methods of evaluation relating to thier composition and quality. This chapter deals with methods of oil, protein and sugar analysis. Oil being the major constituent of oilseeds, importance has been given to methods of oil quality evaluation including fatty acid profile. Antinutrients especially aflatoxins, glucosinolates, ricin, oxalate, phytic acid, oligosaccharides, etc. also find a place. Analytical methods of some vitamins and minerals have also been included. Only a few important and most essential procedures relating to oilseed quality have been presented. The analyst can find more details and methods of evaluation of other constituents in standard laboratory analytical manuals.

Appendix Conversion Factors