Analysis of olive oil for authentication and shelf life determination

High-field proton (¹H) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was applied for screening the fatty acyl contents of 33 olive oil samples from five different geographical regions of Turkey to do geographical discrimination analysis. The ¹H NMR data were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to discriminate the origin of olive oils. The combination of discriminative screening by ¹H NMR and ANOVA did not require further analysis of olive oil such as gas chromatography (GC). ANOVA was employed for samples from three regions separately: Marmara Region (MR), Aegean Region (AR), and Mediterranean Region (MeR). The best discriminative parameter was the ¹H NMR signal of linoleoyl acyl content. Applying both quantitative NMR and statistical analysis indicated that samples from different provinces within each geographical region (MR, AR, and MeR) could be discriminated. Comparing the linoleoyl and oleoyl acyl contents of Turkish olive oils with these of some Mediterranean olive oils showed the possibility of distinguishing the Turkish olive oils. ¹H NMR spectra of three olive oil samples with the production years of January 2013, January 2014, and January 2015 were acquired in 2016 for discussing shelf life of olive oil by quantifying fatty acyls content, and determining minor constituents and possible by-products during storage. The effects of altitude and soil quality on fatty acyl contents of olive oil samples from a small olive growing village in Northeastern Turkey were also tested.