Fatty acid composition and oxidative stability of fish oil products in turkish retail market

The fatty acid composition and oxidative stability of fish oil and syrups available in the Turkish retail market were examined in this study. The major saturated fatty acids in capsules and syrups were palmitic acid (16:0) and stearic acid (18:0). The monounsaturated fatty acid contents of fish oil products have very different results (10.71-50.46%). The results show that the label claims for total omega-3, eicosapentaenoic acid, and docosahexaenoic acid presented a reasonable accuracy for the examined products, but it was noted that some of the results showed a considerable difference with the labels. The free fatty acid level in fish oil products was generally low (0.13-1.95% of oleic acid). Peroxide value of all examined products was below the limit of 10 meq kg-1 oils for edible oil as indicated in Codex (1999). It was detected that the p-Anisidine value of fish oil capsules (5.36-8.90) was considerably lower than for fish oil syrups (21.86-26.74). According to our results, the totox value of fish oil capsules evaluated in this study (7.08-17.35) was within acceptable limits. However, fish oil syrups (34.72-38.06) highly exceeded the upper tolerable limit (26). © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC