High temperature degradation of fatty acids: mechanistic studies of antioxidant and cyclization

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Canada is an important producer of fats and oils (Canola, soya, flax, lard, tallow) and a major user of fats and oils for industrial frying. In the present context of low saturates, zero trans and omega-3 nutrition, heating fats and oils results more than ever in thermolytic and oxydative processes leading to the formation of degradation products such as cyclic fatty acid monomers, oligomers (polymers), trans and oxygenated fatty acids, and in volatile breakdown molecules. While the products of degradation may transform healthy oils into products which are harmful to human health, the thermal stability of the oils is a growing economic preoccupation for the food industry. Thus our long term goal is to develop ways to control the modification of fats and oils at high temperatures (as in frying) through a better understanding of the mechanisms and kinetics of the chemical reactions leading to the decomposition of the lipid molecules, and also by which non-traditionnal lipidic antioxidants may act as protective agents for unsaturated fatty acids.