# Physico-Chemical Characteristics of _Rosa canina_ L. Seeds and Determining Their Potential Use
## 3 Results and Discussion
Apart from endogenous amino acids, which the human body can produce itself, essential amino acids, which the body cannot synthesize and must acquire with food, are extremely important for human health. The predominant essential amino acid in the rosehip seeds was glutamic acid, while the lowest values were recorded for taurine and ornithine (Table 4). \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline
**Color Parameters** & **Whole Seeds** & **Milled Seeds** & **Delta** \\ \hline L * & 61.5 & 68.9 & –7.4 \\ a * & 10.5 & 8.8 & 1.3 \\ b * & 28.2 & 26.2 & 2.0 \\ \(\Delta\)E & – & – & 7.74 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} \(\mathbb{L}^{*}\), luminance; a *, the color axis from green to red; b *, the color axis from blue to yellow; \(\Delta\)E, total color difference.  
\end{table} 
Table 2: Color parameters of rosehip seeds in the CIE L * a * b * space. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Protein** & **Fat** & **Carbohydrates** & **Soluble Dietary** & **Ash** \\
**[g/100 g]** & **[g/100 g]** & **[g/100 g]** & **Fibre [\%]** & **[g/100 g]** \\ \hline
7.67 \(\pm\) 0.03 & 6.23 \(\pm\) 0.08 & 79.2 \(\pm\) 0.12 & 71.6 \(\pm\) 0.11 & 1.96 \(\pm\) 0.02 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Basic chemical composition of rosehip seeds. The quality of plant material also depends on its fat content, as well as fatty acid composition. Their content in rosehip seeds may be affected by environmental conditions (e.g., soil, climate, and altitude), ripening stage, harvest time, genetic factors, or the type of material (fresh or heat-treated seeds) [12; 37; 38; 39]. Previous research has shown that rosehip seeds contain from 4.91% to 16.05% fat, depending on the ripening stage [12]. Other authors have reported fat content of 6.29 g/100 g [36] and 5.56 g/100 g [38] in rosehip seeds. The total lipid content in the rosehip seeds analyzed in the present study amounted to 6.23 g/100 g (Table 3). According to the literature, the lipid fraction of rosehip seeds contains high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) (73.88-79.52%, depending on the ripening stage) in comparison with monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) and saturated fatty acids (SFAs) [12]. In another study, the percentages of PUFAs, MUFAs, and SFAs were 65.69%, 25.64%, and 8.44%, respectively [37]. [PERSON] et al. [37] reported PUFA content of 65.02 g/100 g, while MUFA and SFA content were 22.63 and 8.81 g/100 g, respectively. In the present study, the major fatty acids recorded in rosehip seeds were PUFAs--linoleic acid (53.19%) and linolenic acid (20.24%). A high content of oleic acid (17.63%), representing MUFAs, was noted as well. Similar results for the predominant fatty acids in rosehip seeds were obtained by [PERSON] et al. [38], who reported linoleic, oleic, and linolenic acid at levels of 46.64%, 25.64%, and 17.65%, respectively. Similarly, [PERSON] et al. [37] found that the main fatty acids were linoleic (51.49%), oleic (22.49%), and \(\alpha\)-linolenic acid (13.46%). The main saturated fatty acids detected in rosehip seeds in the present study were butyric (5.12%) and palmitic acid (2.11%) (Table 5). Other researchers have reported that the main SFAs in rosehip seeds were palmitic (4.22%) and stearic (2.66%) acids [37]. Similarly, in the studies [PERSON] et al. [27] palmitic (1.71-3.17%) and stearic (1.69-2.47%) acids were the dominant saturated acids in rosehip seeds from different regions of Turkey.