Antioxidant for fats and oils from canary seed: Sterol and triterpene alcohol esters of caffeic acid

Abstract Several kinds of seeds used as bird feed were extracted successively with hexane, ether and methanol. In the antioxidant test with extracts, the ether extract from canary seeds showed the highest activity. The antioxidant fraction separated from it by thin layer chromatography showed excellent activity for lard and sardine oil. The effective components were identified by gas chromatography and gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry of the hydrolyzed products as the esters of caffeic acid with cycloartenol, gramisterol, sitosterol and campesterol with the minor amounts of 24‐methylenecycloartanol, obtusifoliol, brassicasterol and Δ7‐stigmastenol.