Monday, Aug 30, 2004
Mustard Oil Made Healthier
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Mustard oil, rated high by doctors due to health benefits, has been further modified by scientists in New Delhi who said that the new product is healthier and superior than its counterparts like the premium canola.
The modified mustard lacks an unwanted constituent called erucic acid, is rich in an important constituent called oleic acid and has ten per cent each of essential unsaturated fats, linoleic acid and omega 3, Deepak Paintal of the Genetics
Department of Delhi University, whose team carried out the modifications, said.
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Thus, it is comparable to olive oil in its oleic acid content but is superior overall as it also contains omega 3 which is not availabe in oilve oil, he said.
The new mustard is also at par with canola rapeseed oil, a premium edible oil in Western countries, due to its zero erucic acid content and rather superior due to its high oleic acid content, Paintal said.
"Nutritional and toxicological studies are to be carried out this year itself and limited scale field trials are likely to take place in the growing season of 2004-05," he said.
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"Edible oils with high oleic acid content are reported to be beneficial as oleic acid increases the stability of oil and affects fat content of blood favourably," Paintal said.
K Srinath Reddy of the Department of Cardiology at AIIMS said erucic acid does not metabolise well in the body and weakens the heart muscles. Mustard is considered good for heart but its erucic acid content was a concern.
With the new oil, the protective effect of mustard oil has been retained while harmful part removed.
A study in France in which butter in diet was replaced by canola oil, a zero erucic acid oil, found 70 per cent reduction in heart attack deaths in people who already had a cardiac arrest, Reddy said.
He said omega-3 found in mustard is also protective for heart as it reduces clotting, blood pressure and bad fat. It is found in fish and for vegetarians, mustard is the source.
Mustard was modified using both conventional breeding and genetic engineering. "In the first step we removed erucic acid using conventional breeding," Paintal said.
However, removal of erucic acid increased the amount of linoleic acid and omega-3 to a higher side which affects the stability of the oil.
Further modification was done using genetic engineering to down regulate conversion of oleic acid into linoleic acid and omega 3. Thus, new strain with 75 per cent oleic acid and 10 per cent each of linoleic acid and omega 3 was produced, he said.
Besides bringing healthy oil for consumers, the new research would also increase income of farmers as new oil may fetch better price in the market, he claimed. The research, supported by the National Dairy Development Board and its subsidiary Dhara Vegetable Oil and Food Co. Ltd was published in the international journal `Molecular Breeding'.
Mustard oil has only about eight per cent of saturated fats and rest is all unsaturated fats. Oils with high unsaturated fats are considered superior for health.
However, composition of unsaturated fats in conventional mustard oil is not satisfactory. It is low in oleic acid, has good amount of omega-3 fraction, but has high amount of erucic acid.
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Original Source of the article: DDI News
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