Lipid oxidation is a major factor affecting flavor quality and shelf life of vegetable oils. Oxidative stability is therefore an important criterion by which oils are judged for usefulness in various food applications. In this study a method based on headspace analysis was developed to evaluate relative oxidative stability of canola oils. The method does not require the use of chemicals, involves minimal sample preparation, and can be performed on a relatively small sample size in comparison with traditional wet chemical methods. Canola oils freshly extracted in the laboratory from different seed samples were subjected to accelerated oxidation and analyzed for PV by standard methods and headspace volatiles by solid phase microextraction/GC-MS. Forward stepwise regression analysis of the data revealed a relationship between PV and headspace concentration of the volatile lipid oxidation products hexanal and trans,trans-2,4-heptadienal. The PV calculated using this formula correlated (R 2 = 0.73) with those measured by conventional methods.Paper no. J11179 in JAOCS 82, 869-874 (December 2005).

The effects of genotype and growing environment on the tocopherols and fatty acids (FA) of experimental Brassica juncea and B. napus breeding lines were investigated. For both species, with the exception of a few genotypes, the concentration ratio of c-tocopherols to a-tocopherol was practically constant. The genotype influenced the tocopherol concentration in B. napus, and to a lesser degree, B. juncea. The environment also had a similar effect, and a positive correlation existed between the daily maximum temperature and the a-tocopherol concentration in B. napus. Genotype effects on the FA composition were significant for the conventional but not for Clearfield or triazine tolerant traits of B. napus. The genotype had no effect on the FA of the B. juncea genotypes. In contrast, the growing environment had a significant influence on the FA composition of both species with apparent influence from temperature and rainfall. For both species, the concentration of c-tocopherol as well as total tocopherols was inversely related to the 18:3 concentration, which could have resulted from opposite and independent effects of temperature on the two variables. No relationship existed between the concentrations of tocopherol and the remaining unsaturated FA 18:1 and 18:2. The positional distribution of unsaturated FA within the oil triacylglycerol was a function of their total concentration.