The group’s AGM and annual social dinner is being planned for Tuesday August 17th at a local Mt. Eden Restaurant (Cazador). This is not a typical bureaucratic meeting but is intended as a social mixer for anybody, their friends, and colleagues and partners who are vaguely interested in the oily stuff. There will be a notice sent out to members of the group.
Contact eyresy@gmail.com
Standard for Olive Oil
Standards Australia is working on an overall Australian standard for all grades of olive oil. The objectives are to recognise the natural differences that are seen in olive oil from down under and to stop consumer confusion over the various nomenclatures used to describe refined olive oils. The move to creating a new standard was catalysed somewhat by an article in Choice magazine in Australia reporting that over 50% of EV oils nalysed by a qualified laboratory(Modern Olives) did not meet the analytical requirements.Similar results have been reported in the past by our own Consumer magazine.
Choice, (2010) July p38
There has also been published recently a new USDA standard for all grades of olive oil, primarily to prevent adulteration and the confusion over the different types of olive oil.
Olive oils in the NZ supermarkets
The recent issue of the Koru magazine from Air New Zealand carries an upbeat article about NZ olive oils. It is good to see them getting the publicity they deserve. Whilst the quality of these oils is very good, they are also quite expensive yet competitively priced Extra virgin oil are starting to appear on the supermarket shelves.
The latest edition of The Orchardist (July, 2010) has an interesting article on Simunovich Olive Estate in Bombay.
Eye health
Nutrition ingredient suppliers have for several years been promoting the use of lutein in eye health to prevent macular degeneration. A recent paper published by workers at the Department of ophthalmology, Dijon in France has recently published a paper doing a study on the role of lipids and lutein in high health.
Lipid Technology, (2010), Vol. 22, p. 130-133
Chip Group merges standards and unveils the good oil
The Chip Group is helping those people involved in cooking chips to take a step closer towards improving the quality of them, with the launch of merged Industry Standards and a new Standard for oil. Judith Morley-John a Heart Foundation nutritionist and spokesperson for the Chip Group, said the decision to merge the two Standards originally developed for the foodservice/hospitality sector and chip shop operators came about following extensive consultation with the industry.
From the Nutrition Foundation Newsletter July, 2010
Butter and spreads in our supermarkets
On a recent trip to the United States of America and a visit to the local high-class supermarkets it was observed American butter occupies almost 2/3 of the refrigerator shelf space for yellow fat spreads. An interesting development which this author was told was due to the suspicions of the consumers surrounding any yellow fat product in tubs. We in NZ are seeing a diversity of Dairy blends and butter spreads on our shelves. The recent relaunch of Mainland Butter soft which is the original spreadable butter (with no oil) is good to see. This is an excellent tasting product.
AOCS Recent publications
Lipid publications are moving into the electronic age in a big way. A focus on obesity is a multi-media CD-ROM and features audio power point presentations, text, and downloaded literature articles and links to further references.
AOCS press, 2009, Urbana, IL, USA, $89 USD
Methods Study
The pre-collaborative study on AOCS Ce 1j-07 (chromatographic conditions) and Ce 1k-09 (direct methylation) generated results indicating these methods will become industry standards for fat analysis and labeling. A full collaborate study began in July. Contact Amy Johnson for more information.
Antioxidant effect of spices in hamburgers
Spices that were traditionally used to preserve foods are now studied for their antioxidant effects that are predominantly due to phenolic compounds. Malondialdehyde were chosen as the marker of oxidation in a study of spices in hamburgers. A spice mixture of cloves, cinnamon, oregano, rosemary, ginger, black pepper, paprika and garlic powders, significantly reduced the incidence of malondialdehyde during cooking.
Li, Z., Am. J. Clin. Nutr, 2010, 91, 1180-1184
ALA with probiotics
Studies have been carried out on mice with Bifidobacterium and ALA9alpha linolenic acid) showed that the co-feeding resulted in higher levels of EPA in the liver than without the probiotic. A very interesting observation from a nutritional perspective. So take yoghurt with your flaxseed in the morning.
Wall, R., Lipids, 2010, 45,429-436
First high GLA safflower oil
The first high GLA (45%) safflower oil has reached commercial scale after six years of research by Arcadia Biosciences at Davis University, California.
GLA (gamma linolenic acid) is of growing interest to nutritional product manufacturers and to skin care producers because of its observed effect on eczema.
Inform, 2010, 21,325-384
Metallic taste from pine nuts (pine mouth)
Members of this reviewer’s family observed that everything tasted metallic after consuming a meal incorporating pine nuts. This well known phenomenon has currently no determined explanation but is possibly due to flavour contamination by insects during growth. Metallic taste disturbance, known as metallogeusia, is reported 1–3 days after ingestion, being worse on day 2 and lasting for up to 2 weeks. Cases were self-limited and resolve without treatment. The phenomenon apparently only occurs with Chinese product.
- Laurence Eyres, FNZIFST