**Virgin Olive Oil**

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**Chapter 8** 

© 2012 Servili et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2012 Servili et al., licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Technological Aspects of Olive Oil Production** 

Virgin olive oil (VOO) is obtained exclusively by mechanical extraction from the olive fruit and can be consumed crude without any further physical-chemical treatments of refining. Its sensory and health properties are intimately linked to its chemical characteristics, in particular to several minor components, which are strongly affected by the operative conditions of oil processing and can thus be considered as analytical markers of the quality

VOO contains different classes of phenolic compounds, such as phenolic acids, phenolic alcohols, hydroxy-isochromans, flavonoids, secoiridoids and lignans. The phenolic acids together with phenyl-alcohols, hydroxy-isochromans and flavonoids are present in small amounts in VOO (Montedoro et al., 1992). Secoiridoids which, in combination with lignans, are the main hydrophilic phenols of VOO, include the dialdehydic form of decarboxymethyl elenolic acid linked to 3,4-DHPEA or *p*-HPEA (3,4-DHPEA-EDA or *p*-HPEA-EDA) an isomer of the oleuropein aglycon (3,4-DHPEA-EA) and the ligstroside aglycon (*p*-HPEA-EA). The main lignans found in VOO are (+)-1-acetoxypinoresinol and (+)-1-pinoresinol (Brenes et al., 2000; Owen et al., 2000). Both secoiridoids and lignans affect the quality of the sensory and

health properties of VOO (Servili et al., 2004a), determining bitter, pungent sensations.

Many compounds, mainly carbonyl compounds, alcohols, esters and hydrocarbons, have

The C6 and C5 compounds, especially C6 linear unsaturated and saturated aldehydes alcohols and esters represent the most important fraction of volatile compounds found in

The C6 and C5 compounds, produced from polyunsaturated fatty acids by the enzymatic activities exerted by the lipoxygenase (LOX) pathway and their concentrations, depend on

the level and the activity of each enzyme involved in this LOX pathway.

Maurizio Servili, Agnese Taticchi, Sonia Esposto,

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Beatrice Sordini and Stefania Urbani

been found in the volatile fraction of VOO.

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/52141

**1. Introduction** 

of oil processing.

high quality VOOs.
