Nutrition of rice bran oil in relation to its purification

A comparative nutritive study was made to show that the extent of purification markedly influences the nutritive characteristics of rice bran oil. The coefficient of digestibility was 93.8% when rice bran oil that had been purified by degumming, deacidifying, bleaching and deodorizing was fed to rats; whereas it was 94.8% when extremely pure rice bran oil, which was achieved by including an additional dewaxing step, was used. Rice bran oil without deodorization, but purified by other treatments, showed a 96.2% coefficient of digestibility, which is somewhat lower than that of groundnut oil. However, after a feeding experiment over three months, the highly purified rice bran oil showed better results than the other two purified samples of rice bran oil, and was sometimes better than groundnut oil in terms of total lipid, triglyceride and especially in cholesterol content in serum, liver and heart tissues.