Abstract:

Fat content and fatty acid composition are important nutritional properties of shea fruits.
FarmersinUgandareportthepresenceoflocalsheatreeethno-varieties,butitisnecessary
toinvestigate their relative fat content andfattyacidcompositiontoevaluatetheeconomic
importance of these ethno-varieties. Near infrared spectrophotometry (NIRS) was used to
determine the fat content as well as the fatty acid composition of 44 ethno-varieties. Wet
chemistry(soxtecpetroleum– etherfatextractionandgaschromatography)methodswere
usedtovalidatetheresultsfromNIRS.Fatcontentrangedfrom43.9%to58.4%whilefatty
acid composition was dominated by oleic (47–62%) and stearic acid (25–38%). Other
fatty acids present were palmitic, vaccenic, linoleic, linolenic and arachidic acids. There
was no significant difference in stearic, palmitic and oleic acid composition between
ethno-varieties. However, significant variation of fat content, vaccenic and linoleic acids
wasobserved between someethno-varieties, perhaps due to locality, climatic and tree-to
tree differences. These findings can be utilized for the selection of ethno-varieties that are
suitable for commercial production of shea oil in Uganda.