Finally, two minor components, possibly marking the effect of harvest date on oil composition and properties, should be consid-ered, namely phospholipids and tocopherols. Argan oil is knownas having a high content of tocopherols (Charrouf and Guillaume,2008b). Most of its pharmacological or nutritional properties havebeen attributed to this high tocopherol content (El Monfaloutiet al., 2010). Tocopherols also participate to oil preservation byacting as natural preservatives against autoxidation (Gharby et al.,2012), thus increasing shelf life (Gharby et al., 2011). It is clearfrom Table 3 that total tocopherols increased as a function ofharvest date (P < 0.05). In Argan oil from April harvest, total tocoph-erol content was 675 mg/100 g, whereas it was 8.5% higher in oilobtained in July (732 mg/100 g). Here is an effect of the harvestdate on oil quality, only visible on minor components upon detailedanalysis.