Acrylamide in Ready-to-Eat Potato Products

Inglés. The formation of the suspected carcinogenic compound acrylamide has become a noticed problem in the heat processing of several types of carbohydrate rich food items. The European Union is currently working to mitigate these levels, where one strategy is to implement a new regulation with benchmark levels for acrylamide in different products. The regulation also includes recommendations on how to reduce the levels of acrylamide for different types of food products. This new regulation forces food producers within Europe to work actively in order to reduce acrylamide levels if such are currently exceeded. French fries and other potato based products are food products in which high levels of acrylamide can form during heat treatment. These levels are problematic and therefore these products are included in the regulation. This study aimed at evaluating how different combinations of temperature and time of the cooking preparation affects the formation of acrylamide in three different potato products. A requirement in this study was also that the products would still meet the sensorial qualities set by the producer, after changing these settings. Three different potato products from the producer Orkla Foods were included in the study; Pommes Frites, Pommes Criss Cut, and Klassiska Rösti. In the method, four different temperature settings including the current temperature recommendation and temperatures 5 °C, 15 °C, and 25 °C below the current instructions were tested. The different temperatures were also tested in combinations with different cooking times, in order to find combinations at each temperature that resulted in good sensorial qualities of the food items. The analytical method included quality control by carefully monitoring the temperature in the oven and in the food items, as well as a sensorial evaluation. The analytical method also included two different methods for colour analysis. The samples with combinations of temperature and time that gave good sensorial properties were sent in for analysis of acrylamide to a certified analysis laboratory. The results from the colour analysis were problematic to evaluate because of problems with the method. For a majority of the samples analysed the benchmark level was not exceeded, but it was exceeded slightly for the samples of the product Pommes Criss Cut. The findings of this study suggest that, from the few samples analysed for acrylamide in this study, the cooking temperature that resulted in the lowest acrylamide content for all three products was 220 °C.

Inglés. Can the Acrylamide Content in Ready-To-Eat Potato Products be Reduced with Changed Cooking Instructions? The presence of the suspected carcinogenic substance acrylamide in food products was discovered in 2002, from research performed at Stockholm University and by the National Food Agency of Sweden. Problematic food products include french fries and other potato products. Can a change in cooking temperature reduce these levels of acrylamide, but still allow the french fries to attain the desired properties that make them so delicious? Since 2002 a lot of research has been performed in order to mitigate the levels of acrylamide in food products. With the objective to mitigate these levels, the EU implemented benchmark levels for acrylamide in different problematic food products in 2018. The benchmark level for french fries is 500 μg/kg, and for other potato products it is 750 μg/kg. Food producers now need to comply with these regulations. One way to follow the recommendations is to use the recommended cooking temperatures from the EU regulation, stating that 220 °C should be the maximum cooking temperature for domestic oven cooking of products like french fries. The current instructions for several frozen potato products produced by Orkla Foods have temperature instructions of 225 °C. If reducing these, it should first be evaluated that the appreciated properties of the cooked products, such as a golden colour, crispiness, and a nice consistency can be attained with changed cooking temperature and time instructions. Also important is to control that the changed instructions will actually give a lower acrylamide content in the cooked product, than when cooked at 225 °C. This has been investigated for three different potato products, Felix Pommes Frites, Felix Pommes Criss Cut, and Felix Klassiska Rösti. It was evaluated that the properties for desirable colour, crispy texture and a good consistency could be attained when cooking at lower temperatures (220 °C, 210°C and 200 °C). For the lower temperatures the result of the cooked product was not identical to when cooked at 225 °C, but the products could reach the desired properties for colour, texture, and consistency. In order to attain these desired properties, the cooking times needed to be increased at the lower temperatures. By analysing samples cooked at 200 °C, 220 °C and 225 °C for acrylamide levels, it could be seen that for all three food products tested, the products cooked at 220 °C had the lowest content of acrylamide. Although, since only one sample for each product and temperature was analysed, no general conclusions could be made for the acrylamide content in the products cooked at these temperatures. It did however suggest that the maximum temperature recommended by the EU for these kinds of products, 220 °C, could be good to implement for these types of potato products. The highest levels of acrylamide for the french fry products were reached when cooked at 225 °C, when comparing the results from the samples in this study. For the product Klassiska Rösti, the levels of acrylamide were well below the benchmark level at 750 μg/kg.