Availability of linoleic acid from cereal-pulse diets

Cereals and pulses alone provide nearly two-thirds of the daily linoleic acid requirement in habitual Indian diets. Two-thirds of the lipids present in cereals is in bound form. To investigate to what extent the essential fatty acids (EFA) present in cereals and pulses are biologically available, weanling rats were fed rice-pulse based diets either without supplementation or supplemented with one of three vegetable oils—coconut, palmolein or groundnut oil. Plasma phospholipid fatty acid composition was used to assess the EFA status, with ratios of eicosatrienoic/arachidonic acids (20∶3n−9/20∶4n−6) above 0.2, indicating linoleic acid deficiency. In the unsupplemented group, the levels of linoleic and arachidonic acids were low as compared to the groundnut oil fed group. However, the ratio of 20∶3n−9/20∶4n−6 was less than 0.2, indicating that there was no linoleic acid deficiency. This shows that the linoleic acid present in rice and pulse may be readily available.