Seed Oil Biological Properties, Health Benefits and Commercial Applications

The importance of fats for humans, animals and plants lies in their high content of energy. In addition, fats allow humans and animals to consume fat-soluble vitamins and provide them with essential fatty acids (FAs), which are indispensable because their bodies are unable to synthesise themselves. Vegetable oils are used for many food and industrial purposes. Although a wide variety of sources of vegetable oils, global consumption is dominated by palm, soybean, rapeseed and sunflower oils. In recent years there has been development of underexploited promising plant species as a source of dietary or specialty oils. Many of them contain significant quantities of oils and/or a high proportion of nutritionally, medicinally or industrially desirable FAs. This book discusses the biological properties, health benefits and commercial applications on seed oils.