Virgin Coconut Oil: Extraction, Quality Control and Biological Functions

Virgin coconut oil (VCO) is a premium product of coconut, considered as functional food oil due to its various pharmacological and beneficial effects on humans. The oil industry has developed numerous extraction processes for obtaining VCO from the coconut fruit. These methods include cold and hot extractions, extraction with low pressure, chilling, freezing and thawing, natural fermentation, centrifugation, enzyme extraction, supercritical CO2 extraction, and expeller pressing. Different extraction methods yield VCO with varying physicochemical characteristics, leading to different products with a wide range of applications. Certain bioactive components in VCO, particularly lauric acid, are reported to exhibit biological effects believed to be beneficial to human health, such as antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. Given the high market value of VCO, quality control and analysis to detect potential adulteration are crucial to ensure authenticity and compliance with claimed labels. To address this, various analytical techniques have been optimized, validated, and successfully applied for the quality control and authentication analysis of VCO. Additionally, this chapter discusses various biological functions of VCO.