Quick determination of erucic acid in mustard oils and seeds

Erucic acid is known to have negative effects on the human health and is therefore regulated in nutritional products such as vegetable oils. In order to determine the content of erucic acid in mustard oil an oil must be pressed from seeds, the oil derivatized into fatty acid methyl esters and then analyzed by gas chromatography. By using thermally assisted hydrolysis and methylation we were able to develop a method that can determine the content of erucic acid in mustard oils directly from the mustard seeds, thus avoiding time consuming pressing and off-line derivatization steps. Eleven samples have been tested and the results are in good agreement with conventional oil analysis. It could further be shown that even mustard varieties which are listed as erucic acid free can produce certain amounts of this fatty acid under certain environmental conditions, which supports the need for a fast and reliable screening method which enables analysis directly from the seeds.