Chemical composition of olive oil

The olive tree belongs to the Oleaceae family, to the Olea genus and to the Olea europea family – the only one with edible fruit.

A profile of olive oil composition depends on several variables that can be clustered into four large groups: climate, soil, olive ripeness and cultivar. Between 98% and 99% of olive oil is made up of triglycerides. The triglyceride structure is formed by one molecule of glycerol and three fatty acids. It also contain free fatty acids, the proportion of which is variable and depends on the extend of triglycerides hydrolysis.

But the fatty acid composition of olive oil varies according to variety climatic conditions and production location.

Phenolic compounds present in Olea europea L. belong to six main families of compounds: phenolic acids, phenolic alcohols, flavonoids (flavones, flavonols, flavanones and flavanols) isochromans, lignans and secoiridoids and their derivatives.

Among phenolic compounds, phenolic acids are those with the simplest form (benzoic acids and cinnamic acid derivative).

Olive oil has organoleptic characteristics that most other oils do not possess, such as fruity olive characteristics. The characteristics aroma of olive oils results from a complex set of over 100 volatile components at are found only in very small quantities.
Chemical composition of olive oil

Sweetness and Sweetener Interactions

Sweetness and Sweetener Interactions
Sweetness is probably the first taste sensation recognized by human beings after birth. It is the main taste/flavor attributed to carbohydrate, even though relatively few carbohydrates are actually sweets. Human can recognize sweetness in hundreds, perhaps thousand, of different, vastly diverse molecules, yet very little is actually known about the sweet taste receptor and the sequence of biophysical events that take place for the sweet taste sensation to occur.

There is a theory named AH-B theory to explain what is needed structurally and chemically to make a molecule sweet. They postulated that a sweet molecule needed two points of attachment to sweet receptor. There was a proposed that the sweet taste receptor has at least eight points of attachment that can interact with a chemical to produce a sweet taste, attempting thereby to better explain the range of chemicals that taste sweet.

Only a few of many hundreds of known sweet chemicals are used in foods. Sucrose, common table sugar, constitutes the benchmark by which all other sweeteners are judge. Other food carbohydrates, with the exception of fructose and xylitol, are less sweet than sucrose, and the noncarbohydrates sweeteners are many times sweeter than sucrose.
Sweetness and Sweetener Interactions