3. Results and discussion
3.1. Physical and chemical properties of BO during storage
The effect of physical conditions of storage as time period and
presence or absence of nitrogen blanket on BO fatty acids is shown
on Table 1. The fatty acid profile of BO presents high linoleic acid
(38.92 g/100 g) and oleic acid (38.34 g/100 g), in very similar proportions.
In minor proportions, and in decreasing order, palmitic
acid (5.36 g/100 g), lignoceric acid (5.11 g/100 g), gadoleic acid
(4.07 g/100 g), behenic acid (3.83 g/100 g), stearic acid (3.64 g/
100 g) and arachidic acid (0.98 g/100 g) were found. Linolenic acid
was not detected in any sample. This profile differs from that reported
by Vera et al. (2009) for baru almonds, and from Borges et al.
(2014) for crude baru oil, because of the lower proportions of oleic
and stearic acids, besides higher proportions of linoleic and gadoleic
acids of our BO, indicating a higher degree of unsaturation. It is
worth noting that the conditions of solvent extraction or cold
pressing without refining steps of the oils for analysis in the reported
works differ from physical extraction followed by degumming
and bleaching of BO in our work and is one possible source of
variation between the fatty acid profiles of baru almond and BO.
Furthermore, studies focusing on the effect of climatic conditions
on fatty acid profiles of baru almonds, should be carried out. Onemli
(2012) studied three cultivars of peanuts during three years and
found that oleic acid decreased and linoleic acid increased at lower
temperatures post anthesis. Indeed, the effect of lower temperatures
on the synthesis of unsaturated fatty acids of plants is well established