Effect of fatty acid positional distribution and triacylglycerol composition on lipid by-products formation during heat treatment: I. polymer formation

Effects of the fatty acid positional distribution and of the triacylglycerol (TG) composition on polymerization of TG during heat treatment were studied. Diacid TG molecules, acylated only with linoleic acid or linolenic acid along with palmitic acid, and positioned either in the central position (PLP and PLnP, respectively) or in one of the two outer positions (PPL and PPLn, respectively) were synthesized. Monoacid TG, i.e., trilinolein and trilinolenin, were also synthesized and mixed with tripalmitin in a 1:2 ratio. These model TG were also compared to TG models that consisted of a canola oil and its randomized counterpart, whose fatty acid positional distribution and TG composition were determined by means of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). After heating, the polymer content and composition were evaluated by HPLC-size exclusion chromatography. Both pure TG and the canola oil models showed that acylation of polyunsaturated acids in the central position was protective against polymerization, although the effect was mainly observed with linolenic acid. The synthetic-TG study showed that the monoacid TG species exhibited higher sensitivity toward polymerization than the diacid species. The slight differences in the TG species between both canola oils did not allow observation of such a relationship with regard to TG composition.