Oil Composition of Iranian Major Nuts

Iran annually exports considerable quantities of nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts, pista-chios and walnuts. The fatty acid profile of these nut oils as an index of their quality was determined using gas chromatography. Results indicated that oleic acid (C18:1) was the major fatty acid in almonds (75.37%), hazelnuts (76.21%) and pistachios (60.49%) fol-lowed by linoleic acid (C18:2), whereas in walnuts, the main fatty acid was linoleic acid (49.84%) followed by oleic acid. However, in all cases palmitic acid (C16:0) was detected at a much lower level than those of oleic and linoleic acid (7.26, 5.29, 7.20, 9.23%, respec-tively).