Abstract
It is known that palm oil has a peculiar flavor. However, little information has been obtained on this flavor. To know the flavor compounds characteristic for palm oil, palm oil was fractionated into several fractions by vacuum distillation and saponification, and the organoleptic test of each fraction was carried out. The results indicate that carbonyl-free fractions separated from volatile compounds have distinct palm oil-like flavor. In an other experiment, β-carotene was heated at 200°C for 20min and fractionated into eight fractions by TLC and it was recognized that some fractions showed palm oil-like taste. It seemed to be important for reducing palm oil flavor to remove thermal decomposition products of β-carotene as much as possible.
