DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY CRITERIA FOR DETERMINATION OF GRADES OF COMMERCIAL OLIVE OILS .1. THE NORMAL RANGES FOR THE TRIACYLGLYCEROLS

Criteria for authentic olive oils were developed from isocratic high-performance liquid chromatography analyses of 99 olive oils from the major Mediterranean producers in the 1983-1986 crop years. Authentic olive oils include extra virgin, virgin and pure or refined oils, but exclude all reesterified and adulterated oils. The extra virgin through pure grades will have a combined area for the LOO (C18:2C18:1C18:1), LOP (C18:2C18:1C16:0), OOO (C18:1C18:1C18:1), POO (C16:0C18:1C18:1), POP (C16:0C18:1C18:1), and SOO (C18:0C18:1C18:1) peaks between 82.0 and 92.6% of the total area (L, linoleic; 0, oleic; P, palmitic; S, stearic). Authentic oils will have ratios of LOO/LOP and OOO/POO that coincide with a line defined by OOO/POO = 0.7844(LOO/LOP) + 0.0968; correlation coefficient is 0.885. Authentic oils will not have a trilinolein (LLL) peak over 0.5% in area. Neither triolein (OOO) nor any other single peak suffices to characterize an olive oil sample as one of the authentic grades.