Evaluation of olive oils produced from olives of Gaziantep region in terms of Delta-7 Stigmastenol content

Olive oil obtained from fatty olive fruits is directly consumable after suitable processing. Olive oil has a high nutritional and commercial value. Plant sterols, or phytosterols, belong to the group of the desmethylsterols make up the greatest proportion of the unsaponifiable fraction of vegetable oils. Sterols are the most important parameter in the olive oil composition for determining purity. Maturity index, free acidity, fatty acid composition and sterol composition analysis were done for 39 samples. The average percentage of saturated fatty acids has been identified as 19.816 % in Kilis Yağlık variety, 20.249 % in Nizip Yağlık variety and 20.089 % in Yuvarlak Halhalı variety. In Gemlik and Ayvalık varieties, saturated fatty acids have been determined 16.899 %, and 16.974 %, respectively. The percentage of monounsaturated fatty acids has been detected as the highest ratio (76.166 %) in Gemlik variety. In addition, the percentage of polyunsaturated fatty acids was the biggest with the ratio of 17.027 % in Yuvarlak Halhalı variety. The percentage of ?7-Stigmastenol was 0.47 % and 0.46 % in Nizip Yağlık and Kilis Yağlık varieties, respectively, those were higher than Gemlik and Ayvalık varieties. Ayvalık (1793 mg/kg) and Kilis Yağlık (1541 mg/kg) varieties were observed to be rich from the point of view of total sterol content.