Quality of Lipid Fractions in Deep-Fried Foods from Street Vendors in Chile

Abstract

Deep-fried foods sold by unlicensed street vendors are a health concern for various reasons, but oil quality is particularly important considering known links between fat consumption and cardiovascular disease. To diagnose the exact gravity of this situation in Chile, a country where street vendors are proliferate, the physicochemical parameters of fat fractions from fried food samples were assessed. Fat quality was assessed through the acidity index, peroxide index, extinction coefficient, TOTOX index, polar compounds percentage, and fatty acid profile. Most food samples (80%) had at least a 10% fat content. Many samples also had high peroxide values (1.7–103.3 meqO2/kg) and extinction coefficients (K232 and K270), findings indicative of advanced oil deterioration. These results were supported by values for para-anisidine (100.2–311.0), TOTOX (>103.6), and polar compounds (14.2–49.7%). All assessed food samples contained saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids, as well as trans-fatty acids (0.6–1.7%). According to national regulations on polar compounds, 50% of the assessed food samples are unfit for human consumption. When applying national limits for C18, all food samples should be discarded. These findings stress the urgent need to strictly control deep-fried foods sold by street vendors.

Evaluation of fatty acid‐related nutritional quality indices in fried and raw nile tilapia, (Oreochromis Niloticus), fish muscles

“…This index is very useful to reflect both effects of unsaturated mainly polyunsaturated and saturated fatty acids. Hence, a ratio of less than 0.45 is accounted as undesirable as the higher could probably increase the cholesterol in the blood (Estuary et al, 2020;Flores et al, 2018;Jayasena, Fernando, & Awanthika, 2018). In the current study, the ratio is 0.216 in the fried and 0.474 in the raw fish muscle.…”

Thermal Behavior Improvement of Fortified Commercial Avocado (Persea americana Mill.) Oil with Maqui (Aristotelia chilensis) Leaf Extracts

“…The index of polar compounds is recognized as a parameter for quality control in different regulations in the world. In this case, it indicates that an oil destined for a thermo-oxidative process, such as the deep fat frying process, cannot exceed a value of 25% [ 61 ]. Thus, the OP, OE, and OM samples reached this value at approximately 250, 310, and 360 h after heating, respectively, which demonstrates the protective effect of maqui leaves extracts.…”

Research on Quality of Food Frying Oils Used in Commercial Restaurants

“…For commercial restaurants, the availability and price of frying oil represent the most important factors of economic sustainability, because food absorbs a significant amount of frying oil during frying. In addition, other factors are important for the choice of frying oil, such as oil expiration date, acceptable sensory and oil nutritional properties, and it is known that these properties largely depend on the physic -chemical oil properties and fatty acids composition [10,11,12].The tested physic -chemical oil properties, in addition to assessing the oil quality, are often used as parameters of oil identification.…”

“…The process of food fryingin deep oil takes place at temperatures of 150 -190° C, in the presence of atmospheric oxygen and moisture, where frying oils are subject to a large number of physic -chemical changes that usually occur at temperature of about 175˚C or higher [7,8,9,10,11].…”