Nutritional characteristics of seeds of eighteen linseed (Linum humille Mill.) cultivars from Serbia

Abstract

The literature data about nutritional characteristics of linseed cultivars from a specific geographical area or country are rather scarce. This is the first study to document differences across autochthonous linseed cultivars in Serbia. Our paper is presenting chemical and mineral compositions of linseed cultivars, their fatty acid compositions and antioxidant capacity of lipid-soluble components, which might be interesting, especially due to the increasing trend of linseed usage in human diet. The examined linseed cultivars statistically differed (p LT = 0.05) in the content of protein (from 18.9% to 27.0%) and fat (from 34.1% to 40.7%). The highest content of a-linolenic acid (C18: 3 omega-3) was recorded in the cultivar labelled with No. 5 (61.1%), while cultivar No. 17 showed the most favourable omega-6:omega-3 ratio (0.16). The highest antioxidant capacity of lipid-soluble substances (ACL) was found in cultivar No. 18 - 392.4 mu mol trolox kg(-1) dry matter. Cultivars with higher ACL value have stronger protection against oxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids. Nevertheless, it seems that ACL is more affected by a cultivar, than by fatty acid composition. The aforementioned results could be useful for determination of shelf life of linseed, or its products, while the fatty acid composition of linseed seeds might be one of the criteria for the authentication of linseed origin. The presented results could be of great help in the future selection of the cultivars, depending on the purpose of linseed production.