Abstract: To find new edible oil sources, a rapid and reliable gas chromatography mass spectrometry method for fatty acid identification and quantitation was developed. The proposed method was then used to quantitation of palmitic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid, linoleic acid and α-linolenic acid in seven different plant seend oils. The fatty acid profiles of spine grape seed, grape seed, foreign grape seed, pumpkin seed, barbary wolfberry fruit seed and passion flower seed oils are similar with different contents of the five fatty acids, indicating they can be alternative sources of edible oil due to the presence of all saturated and unsaturated fatty acids required for human health. Yangtao kiwifruit seed oil may be much better alternative source of edible and nutritional oil because of a high content of α-linolenic acid. This is the first research on the absolute content analysis of fatty acid composition of barbary wolfberry fruit seed oil, passion flower seed oil and yangtao kiwifruit seed oil which provides an important and scientific basis for new edible oil resource exploitation.

Key words: plant seed oil, fatty acid, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, derivatization