Abstract Sesame oil is one of the most commonly used oils in life. It contains a special antioxidant substance called sesame lignans, which has high nutritional value and pharmacological activity. Chromatographic methods are accurate and reliable but not suitable for quality control due to time-consuming. Near-infrared (NIR) quantitative models for quickly determining sesamin, sesamolin and sesame lignans in sesame oil were built using a portable NIR spectrometer combined partial least squares(PLS) algorithm, and the optimal PLS models were developed by comparing the performance of the models with different spectral pretreatment methods and bands selection, the correlation coefficients (R2) were RC2 = 0.98, 0.99, 0.99, RP2 = 0.99, 0.97, 0.94, and the root mean square error (RMSEP) was 2.69 μg/mL, 3.73 μg/mL, and 7.96 μg/mL, respectively. The acceptable results demonstrated that portable NIR spectrometer could be used for monitoring the contents of sesamin, sesamolin, and sesame lignans in sesame oil during the production process to carry out quality control.

Abstract The conversion of sesamin to asarinin is a promising route for the production of asarinin. This work reports the affection of acid type and strength of the catalyst on the conversion of sesamin to asarinin and the effect of various reaction conditions in anhydrous ethanol using phosphotungstic acid (HPW) as catalyst. The experimental results indicate that the activity of sesamin conversion is determined by strong B acids. L acids are not active for the reaction, and do not show synergy with B acids for the formation of asarinin. Reaction time, HPW dosage and temperature have significant effects on sesamin conversion. A maximum asarinin yield of 57.93% was achieved. The reaction kinetics in the temperature range 55-75 °C were studied. The kinetic curves can be successfully fitted with an opposing first-order reaction model. The activation energy (Ea) for this reaction is found to be 105.2 ± 0.4 kJ/mol.

Abstract The safety problems related to the occurrence of benzo(a)pyrene in edible oil have been a major threat to human health, and now significant attention has been to remove benzo(a)pyrene. So in this work, cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin biochars were prepared, and then were used to remove benzo(a)pyrene from contaminated oil. Based on the nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms and the scanning election micrographs, the modified biochars had a huge specific surface area of 983.50-1915.55 m2/g and a well-developed porous structure. The modified biochars showed higher removal rate for benzo(a)pyrene than unmodified biochars. The highest adsorption (95.79%) of benzo(a)pyrene was achieved using the modified lignin biochar, which was therefore selected for evaluation of adsorptive capacity. The ability of the modified lignin biochar to adsorb benzo(a)pyrene was consistent with the pseudo-second order kinetic equation indicating mainly chemisorption, and it fit the Freundlich isotherm (R2 > 0.999), thereby revealing the occurrence of multilayer adsorption. The effect of π-π conjugation interaction and pore-filling together promoted the high adsorption performance of the modified lignin biochar. This work demonstrates that the modified lignin biochar could be a promising adsorbent for the removal of benzo(a)pyrene from edible oils.

Abstract Deep fat frying is a common cooking procedure; however, its effects on food can produce carcinogenic compounds, namely heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) that are detrimental to the health of the consumer. The influence of frying process conditions (temperature, time, meat shape, oil type, oil oxidation) on the formation of HAAs in deep fat fried chicken meat was explored. The concentrations of HAAs increased with frying temperature and time, and higher amounts were found in samples with higher surface areas. The type of oil influenced the formation of HAAs, and more HAAs were found in the samples fried in peanut and rapeseed oils. Oxidation of frying oil also elevated HAAs in fried meat. Understanding how to reduce the formation of HAAs in deep fat frying is essential for reducing the health risks associated with consuming HAAs.

Abstract Chinese quince fruits are rich in proanthocyanidins (PAs), which have antioxidant properties. This work describes a method to isolate PAs from Chinese quince fruits by a combination of ball-milling and enzyme hydrolysis pretreatments. The yield, total PA and total phenolic contents, structural characteristics, antioxidant activity, and α-amylase inhibitory activity of different pretreated PA samples were determined and analyzed. Among them, the ball-milling combined with multi-enzyme (cellulase, xylanase, and pectinase) hydrolysis pretreated sample (BEP-4) was the most outstanding. The yield of BEP-4 could be improved up to 7.72%, which was 2.51 times higher than that of the conventional organic solvent extraction method (3.02%). It had the highest total phenols and PAs content of 750.98 ± 6.95 and 948.72 ± 3.50 mg/g extract, respectively. The thermal stability and molecular weight (9610 Da) of BEP-4 were lower than other fractions. BEP-4 contained a high proportion of PC structure (98.35%) and flavan-3-ol content (87.88%). It also had the highest antioxidant capacity with IC50 values of 131.45 ± 0.97, 22.66 ± 0.32, 134.05 ± 0.71, and 182.07 ± 0.28 μg/mL for DPPH, ABTS, hydroxyl radical scavenging capacity, and α-amylase inhibiting capacity, respectively. These investigations provide a new, efficient way to isolate PAs from Chinese quince fruits, and reveal that Chinese quince fruits may be a good source of antioxidants, worthy of further development.