A ¹H NMR study of the fatty acid distribution in developing flax bolls before and after a cooking treatment

Flax is an important Canadian crop that contains a large percentage of fatty acids (FAs) by seed weight. Gas chromatography (GC) methods have traditionally been used to study FA distributions in oil seed crops. These methods, however, require sample preparation involving saponification and methyl ester formation. Recently, 1H NMR has been shown to be an excellent way to directly measure FA distributions in edible oils using a nondestructive and experimentally faster methodology. As such, we have examined the FA profiles in developing bolls of flax cultivar AC McDuff using 1H NMR and assessed the effect of cooking on FA stability and distribution. The data confirmed the high percentage of linolenic acid in mature AC McDuff flax seed compared to early stages of development and showed that FAs at early stages of boll development are more prone to thermal degradation. Triacylglycerol was found to be important to FA stability to heat. It was also observed that the FAs did not convert from cis to trans under the cooking process used herein. The usefulness of 1H NMR spectroscopy in oils chemistry is highlighted. © 2011 Published by NRC Research Press.