THE ARGAN OIL - The Natural Morrocan Miracle

The argan oil is an edible oil known since millenniums by the populations of the Moroccan southwest and which today is not any more reserved for the Berber traditional cooking(kitchen).
Thanks to the works of the Moroccan researchers chemists and biologists, the argan oil is recognized for its exceptional nutritional qualities.

Besides the nutritional value, the argan oil is also well known by numerous pharmacological properties, in particular in the field of the cardiovascular diseases and with cancers. This attributes (awards) to the argan oil a unique added value in terms of health. If the consumption of argan oil is widely spread in the Moroccan South, its consumption also increased in a very significant way in the other regions of
Morocco and in the other countries since the creation of the cooperatives of producing women of an oil of certified quality. Except its food interest, the argan oil is widely marketed in the sector of the beauty care where it is for a long time a safe value.




The argan oil is prepared from the roasted amandons. This stage of preparation gives to the oil its taste if particular between the sesame and the grilled hazelnut. The Berber populations consume the argan oil almost daily in the breakfast or in the snack by dipping their traditional bread into a bowl filled(performed) with oil.
For a long time this habit allowed these populations often living in poor and difficult zones, to satisfy the totality of their metabolic demand in lipid needs.

The argan oil indeed possesses remarkable nutritional qualities. It is an oil rich in mono-unsaturated fatty acids (45 % of acid oléique) and polyunsaturated (35 % of linoleic acid), as are him(it) oils of groundnut and sesame. The rate of linoleic acid is three times as important in the argan oil that in the olive oil.
The linoleic acid is a precursor of numerous hormones produced by organs such as the prostate, it also intervenes in the preservation of the integrity of the membranes of the epidermic keratinocytes and the keretinization.
The strong content of acid linoleic some argan oil confer him revitalisantes properties on the skin. The deficiency in essential fatty acids, inevitable with the age, causes a skin aging which is translated no desséchement and a loss of elasticity of the skin, so favoring the appearance of wrinkles.
The correction of a deficiency in essential fatty acids allows to delay the skin aging.
Besides fatty acids, the argan oil contains compound minors(miners) endowed with biological activities which have a beneficial effect on the human health and on its stability.
The argan oil is rich in antioxidants (tocophérols, caroténoïdes, flavonoïdes), phytostérols and triterpènes.


The content it tocophérols in the argan oil is 700 mg / kg (the olive oil: 320 mg / kg).
The argan oil is very rich in tocophérol gamma what confers him(her) a protective effect against the free radicals. These last ones are in l " origin of the ageing of the skin and would be implied(involved) in several diseases as cancers or the cardiovascular diseases.
The argan oil is rich in it phytostérols. These belong to the family of the delta 7 stigmastane. The majority stérols is the schotténol and the spinastérol. The schotténol is demonstrated to be anticarcinogenic with a potential pronounced cytotoxique.
These chemical compounds, fatty and composed minor acids, confer on the argan oil a strong nutritional value, they assure(insure) the physiological smooth running of cellular membranes and would strengthen the preventive action of the argan oil against the chronic pathologies.
Experimental, clinical and epidemiological studies prove that the argan oil would be endowed with hypolipémiantes properties and anti-oxidizing beneficial for the health.
The antiprolifératif effect of the flavonoïdes, tocophérols and stérols contained in the argan oil has just been demonstrated in vitro on the epithelial cells(units) taken from a prostatic adénocarcinome, what shows of more a preventive action against the development of cancers.
These beneficial properties of the argan oil exceed the nutritional assets(trump cards) known and recognized for centuries and give him an additional added value which would incite to an increasing demand as well on the national market that international.