Olive press cake - proximate composition and quality of extracted oil Sharma Rakesh*, Sharma PC, Joshi VK Department of Food Science and Technology, Dr Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Solan, India. *E-mail of corresponding author: drrakes@gmail.com
Online published on 9 November, 2012. Abstract Olive (Olea europaea L) is a drupe and made up of about 74% juice/pulp and 26% solids. The pulp contains up to 75% oil, however, kernel contains 12–18% oil on dry weight basis. Olive oil is generally extracted from the fruits by grinding, crushing, centrifugation and pressing. In the present study, the oil was extracted by use of enzymatic treatments. The press cake left after oil extraction (about 32%), which still contains 9.70% of oil, was evaluated for proximate composition and further utilization. It was found in the preliminary experiments that extraction of oil by enzymatic treatments not only enhanced the oil yield but also reduced the amount of press cake as well as loss of oil with the press cake. Unlike, other oil cakes, olive cake had a low total protein (6.87–7.05%) and high crude fibre (40.86- 43.00%) and fat (7.13–9.69%) contents. Based on proximate composition of olive press cake, it could be utilized as a supplementary feed for animals. The oils extracted from olive cakes by solvent extraction method had their quality characteristics not in agreement with either the PFA standards or the standards of Codex Alimentarius Commission for edible purposes. However, these oils can be used for edible purposes after refining or as such can be utilized for various industrial purposes. Top Keywords Olive, Olive oil, Enzymatic extraction, Press cake, Oil quality. Top |