• Why is extraction of wheat germ oil important?
  • Extraction of this oil from wheat germ is important for the effective utilization of its various potential nutraceuticals that have reported health benefits. This review also explains detailed chemical composition, processing, functional activities, and potential utilization of wheat germ oil.
  • What is wheat germ oil?
  • Wheat germ oil is a valuable by-product from wheat grain which is a good source of important nutraceuticals such as ¦Á- and ¦Â-tocopherol. Extraction of this oil from wheat germ is important for the effective utilization of its various potential nutraceuticals that have reported health benefits.
  • How to recover wheat germ oil?
  • Various wheat germ oil (WGO) recovery methods have been adopted, including mechanical pressing, solvent extraction, and supercritical fluid extraction. Some modifications reported by different experimental studies to enhance the oil yield retain the nutritional attributes of fresh oil.
  • Is wheat germ oil a resource waste?
  • However, WGPs have not been fully exploited because wheat germ is typically used for wheat germ oil extraction, generating a partial resource waste (Majzoobi et al., 2022). WGPs contain eight essential amino acids with relatively high levels of lysine, isoleucine, valine and leucine.
  • How to extract WGP from defatted wheat germ?
  • Extraction of WGPs Currently, the leading technologies for extracting WGPs from defatted wheat germ include alkali extraction, microwave- or ultrasonic-assisted alkali extraction, subcritical water extraction, enzymatic extraction and reverse micelle extraction (Fig. 1) (Amagliani et al., 2017; Wen et al., 2019; Leal et al., 2021).
  • Can wheat germ be used for valorization of food products?
  • Wheat germ has been recognized as an economical source of high-quality plant proteins and bioactive compounds for food fortification. Thus, it can be used for valorization of food products as a feasible strategy to enhance the nutritional quality and reduce wheat milling waste.