A Fast GC-MS-Based Method for Efficacy Assessment of Natural Anti-Oxidants for Inhibiting Lipid Oxidation

Area of Science:

• Food Science
• Analytical Chemistry

Background:

• Health benefits favor unsaturated fatty acids in food fats and oils.
• Unsaturated fatty acids are prone to lipid oxidation, necessitating natural antioxidants.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop fast, realistic, and objective methods for assessing natural oxidation inhibition strategies.
• To identify effective natural antioxidants for stabilizing food products.

Main Methods:

• A model system of salt and sunflower oil was used to simulate dry soups and sauces.
• Fast gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was employed to quantify hexanal formation as an indicator of lipid oxidation.

Main Results:

• A rapid GC-MS method with a 2-minute run time was established, detecting hexanal within approximately 20 seconds.
• The method achieved quantification limits below 1 ppm, offering high sensitivity for lipid oxidation analysis.

Conclusions:

• The developed accelerated method successfully identified spice and herb mixtures as potent natural inhibitors of lipid oxidation.
• Effective spice and herb mixtures can delay lipid oxidation over 100-fold compared to unstabilized systems.
• The fast GC-MS method is stable and suitable for high-throughput analysis of numerous samples.