Sacha Inchi Oil

Every number here is Gutierrez, Rosada and Jimenez 2011 (Grasas y Aceites 62(1):76-83, DOI 10.3989/gya044510), an open-access CSIC paper on Colombian Plukenetia volubilis. Table 1 gives the crude hexane-extracted oil a saponification value of 185.2 +/- 0.5 mg KOH/g and an iodine value of 193.1 +/- 1.0 g I2/100 g, both on triplicate determinations, and the ranges here are those means +/- SD. Table 2 supplies the crude-oil fatty-acid column used for the profile: palmitic 4.4, stearic 2.4, oleic 9.1, linoleic 33.4, alpha-linolenic 50.8, summing to 100.1 %. Codex Alimentarius added sacha inchi oil to CXS 210 at the 47th Commission session in December 2024, with a saponification band opening at 185 and an iodine band of 182-205, which would be the better citation; the FAO copy of CXS_210e.pdf was behind a Cloudflare challenge on every attempt at the retrieval date, so no figure has been transcribed from a standard here. The 2011 measurements sit inside both of those bands. One check worth stating so it does not look like an error: full-addition stoichiometry on this profile gives about 208 g I2/100 g, above the 193.1 measured, which is the ordinary behaviour of a Wijs titration on a trienoic oil rather than a contradiction between the two fields. Lozano-Garzon et al. 2023 (Biomolecules 13(6):985) also characterised a Colombian sacha inchi oil, and their fatty-acid column agrees closely with Gutierrez et al. (palmitic 4.96, stearic 2.99, oleic 11.1, linoleic 34.56, linolenic 46.39), but the saponification and iodine values they print beside it, 123.10 and 65.20, are impossible for that composition, which implies roughly 192 and 200; their physicochemical row for this species is therefore not used. The oxidative point matters more here than for anything else in the set. At about 51 % alpha-linolenic this is the most polyunsaturated oil in the dataset, ahead of flaxseed, and the double bonds that put the iodine value near 193 are the same ones that turn the bar rancid. Treat it as a small-percentage additive in cold process, keep the superfat low, do not let it sit in a hot slow-cooling loaf, and use the bar young; a recipe carrying much of it will show orange dreaded spots long before an otherwise identical one without. Commercial supply is a second trap: Ramos-Escudero et al. 2019 (Journal of Food Science and Technology 56(10):4503) profiled 27 commercial sacha inchi oils and found individual samples at 10-12 % alpha-linolenic with more than 50 % linoleic, which is not sacha inchi at all, so an unverified bottle may not have the composition recorded here. Unsaponifiable matter is not reported. No melting point is published either: the paper gives DSC melting behaviour spread from about -45 C upward rather than a melting point, so the field is null. INCI not verified against CosIng in this session.

This record is part of the open ingredient database (ODbL). Found an error or a better primary source? The dataset is on GitHub; corrections with a document link are welcome.