Matured coconuts (11–12 months) were harvested from
healthy coconut palms and dehusked. The dehusked nuts were
broken into two halves and dried in a hot air oven for 8 h for deshelling.
Initially the temperature of the hot air oven was kept at
90 C for 3 h for the fast recovery of moisture and subsequently
the temperature was reduced to 70 C for avoiding the browning
of the endosperm. After proper drying, the deshelled dry endosperm
(copra) was fed into an expeller machine for the extraction
of the oil. The quality of the coconut oil was ensured by determining
the parameters like moisture, lipid composition, fatty acid profile,
iodine value, saponification value, and peroxide value
following the method of AOCS and IUPAC