Formation, mitigation, and detection of acrylamide in foods

Acrylamide is classified as a toxic food contaminant, and it is formed in carbohydrate rich food when heated>120 °C through the Maillard reaction. The main parameters that affect acrylamide formation in foods are the composition of the raw food, and time–temperature of food processing. International organizations have warned against the existence of acrylamide in foods and mandated to limit its consumption to prevent its adverse health effects. This review summarizes some of the innovative and the conventional mitigation techniques. The innovative mitigation techniques are based on the use of lactic acid bacteria, yeasts, and cell extracts used alone or in combination with electrical pulses, while the conventional techniques are blanch-ing, microwave, and the addition of food ingredients in which their effectiveness is related to the control of the temperature and the cooking time. Although LC–MS and GC–MS with or without derivatization are cumbersome procedures, they give accurate results and reduce the interferences of compounds. On the other hand, the current trend for acrylamide detection in food matrices is using simple, fast, and inexpensive techniques such as the filtration-assisted approach for optical detection and the PHYTON imaging program. Yet, their application needs an exhaustive validation.Postprint (published version

Study the interaction of amino acids, sugars, thermal treatment and cooking technique on the formation of acrylamide in potato models

This study unveiled the effect of the suspected precursors of acrylamide (asparagine, glutamine) combined/ separated with different formulations of glucose, fructose, and sucrose. To better understand the interaction between acrylamide precursors, cooking technique (deep vs air frying), and temperature (170 ¿C vs 190 ¿C), seven potato models from starch, sugars, amino acids, water and hydrocolloids (alginate and agar) were formulated. In line with previous findings, the present results showed that asparagine, glucose and fructose played an important role in acrylamide formation in these synthetic potato models. Furthermore, glutamine and sodium alginate might have an inhibitory effect on acrylamide formation. A significant impact of frying tech- nique was also revealed. On the other hand, GC-FID analysis detected acrylamide in only these three models, (glucose-fructose, sucrose and asparagine-glucose/fructose/sucrose models > LOD 333.33 µg.kg 1).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Impact of amino acids and sugars after thermal processing on acrylamide formation in synthetic potato models and real potatoes

Amino acids and sugars, along with the thermal processing, are considered the main parameters to control acrylamide formation in fried potatoes. To evaluate which of these parameters had the greatest influence, 10 synthetic potato-starch-based models formulated in different amino acid and/or sugar combinations and three potato cultivars were assigned. High-performance-liquid chromatography and gas chromatography flame-ionized-detectors were applied to quantify amino acids, sugars, and acrylamide. Results showed that reducing sugars and sucrose significantly increased acrylamide formation amongst all potato samples. Synthetic potato models Asn-GFS contained the highest amount of acrylamide compared to Glu-Fru and real potatoes (Agria and Kennebec). Thus, sugars were considered critical factors for acrylamide formation in potatoes and remained the most practical way of reducing its production