Estimating triacylglycerols from fatty acids by chemometrics. An application in Spanish virgin olive oil

Abstract

The level of acceptation of "1, 3-random 2-random" pattern of acyl groups distribution in virgin olive oil glycerides has been analysed in 36 samples, by comparing the values of triacylglycerols obtained by HPLC with those reported by the cited theory. Hotelling's T2, Principal Components and Canonical Correlation Analysis have been used to study both data sets. The normality of the data distributions, the intra-and intergroup correlations of the triacylglycerols were studied before these multivariate statistical algorithms were applied. An alternative way of estimating triacylglycerols from only total fatty acids has also been studied. A Stepwise Multiple Regression procedure has been employed, and Multiple R coefficients fluctuate between 0,75 and 0,94 except for the variable SOS.