Oils and fats are important raw materials in food products, animal feed, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals among others. The market today is dominated by oils derive, d from African palm, soybean, oilseed and animal fats. Colombia's Amazon region has endemic palms such as Euterpe precatoria (açai), Oenocarpus bataua (patawa), and Mauritia flexuosa (buriti) which grow in abundance and produce a large amount of ethereal extract. However, as these oils have never been used for any economic purpose, little is known about their chemical composition or their potential as natural ingredients for the cosmetics or food industries. In order to fill this gap, we decided to characterize the lipids present in the fruits of these palms. We began by extracting the oils using mechanical and solvent-based approaches. The oils were evaluated by quantifying the quality indices and their lipidomic profiles. The main components of these profiles were triglycerides, followed by diglycerides, fatty acids, acylcarnitine, ceramides, ergosterol, lysophosphatidylcholine, phosphatidyl ethanolamine, and sphingolipids. The results suggest that solvent extraction helped increase the diglyceride concentration in the three analyzed fruits. Unsaturated lipids were predominant in all three fruits and triolein was the most abundant compound. Characterization of the oils provides important insights into the way they might behave as potential ingredients of a range of products. The sustainable use of these oils may have considerable economic potential.
Keywords: Amazonian palms.; lipidomic profile; oil extraction.