Oils and Fats News
April 2015
Laurence Eyres FNZIFST
AAOCS Conference Geelong, Sept 9-11
The Australasian section of the American Oil Society (AAOCS) is holding their biannual conference at “The Pier” Geelong Waterfront 9-11 September, 2015.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Looking back, thinking forward” and aims to look at how far fats and oils research/industry has come as well as to the future to predict where it is heading. These meetings are characterized by good speakers, relevant topics and an excellent opportunity to network and find out what’s going on in this field.
The program will present the latest science and industry updates relating to edible oil and ingredient supply, biotechnology, manufacture of fat-based products, nutritional research, oil analysis, latest developments with omega-3 oils, olive oil, dairy lipids and other activities that support the industry. Furthermore, planned workshops on spreads / margarine formulation and infant formula lipids, led by international experts, are in planning to occur prior to the conference.
The program will be structured to allow delegates to meet colleagues in a social environment to discuss matters of mutual interest. An area for the display of posters and products will support this environment.
Further information on the section is also available at https://aaocs2015.wordpress.com/
Oils and Fats/ Omega-3 seminar at NZIFST conference
The omega-3 centre in conjunction with the Oils and fats Specialist Group are running a one day seminar to take place as a concurrent session on the first day of the NZIFST conference in Palmerston North. This conference celebrates the 50th anniversary of the NZIFST so should be well attended.
More details will emerge as the programme develops.
Omega-3 supplements
The controversy over the publication of this paper continues with the authors not bothering to enter a constructive dialogue with experienced lipid analysts about the methods employed. Dr Peter Nichols of CSIRO has pointed out that two recent papers show both compliance in labelling and a lack of significant oxidation in samples from Australia. Scientists in the marine oils industry and the natural products industries would be keen to see a re-check of the worrying results reported. When Consumer magazine surveyed the market they used independent samplers from a wide variety of outlets and used an officially certified laboratory for the analyses. Compliance was high in the reported analyses.
Nutrients 2014, 6, 3382-3402; doi:10.3390/nu6093382
Nutrients 2014, 6, 1063-1079; doi:10.3390/nu6031063
Infused flaxseed oil
Bio Oils of Ashburton have a range of infused flaxseed oils. These include chilli, herbs ,citrus and garlic. They provide an interesting addition to the range of boutique culinary oils available at retail and at framers’ markets. Their marketing by-line for this range of oils is “traceable from soil to oil”. This reflects the amount of compliance one has to do these days especially for export.
Olive oil
Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), long-known for its heart health benefits, has now been identified for its rapid destruction of cancer cells. While scientists have proven that the oleocanthal compound found in EVOO causes cell death in cancer cells, they have been unable to provide an explanation for this phenomenon until now. Several authors recently offered answers in their paper, published in Molecular & Cellular Oncology.
In their recent study, the researchers discovered that the key to understanding the toxic effect of oleocanthal in cancerous cells lies in its reaction with the lysosomes of the cell, where the cells store waste: the oleocanthal ruptures the cancer cell lysosomes causing cell death within 30 minutes to an hour while leaving un-cancerous cells unharmed.
As more people turn to the Mediterranean diet as a healthy life option, oleocanthal is growing in its significance as a key active component of this diet.”
Thanks to Dr. Peter Robinson of Hill Laboratories for this snippet.
D A Fostera et al. (-)-Oleocanthal rapidly and selectively induces cancer cell death via lysosomal membrane permeabilization (LMP). Molecular & Cellular Oncology, March 2015 DOI: 10.1080/23723556.2015.1006077
Butter awards as part of the cheese and yoghurts annual competition
Over 470 New Zealand specialty cheeses, yoghurts and butters were judged over two days in this year’s competition, with winners announced at a gala dinner and awards ceremony at The Langham in Auckland on Tuesday 17th March.
Thirty one of New Zealand’s most experienced dairy connoisseurs were joined by international judges. The panel was led by one of Australasia’s most experienced cheese judges and renowned cheese educator, Russell Smith.
“Our highly-qualified technical judges were impressed by the quality of the yoghurt and butter presented this year,” Smith said. Most people were bemused to see butter being happily chomped by the two judges assigned to this sought after task.
The Food for Chefs Champion Butter Award was awarded to Lewis Road Creamery who launched the highly-sought-after Fresh Chocolate Milk last year (made with Whittakers Milk Chocolate). The business, that is the brainchild of entrepreneur Peter Cullinane and business partner Andrew Railton launched their European-style premium butter range in 2012. Their desire was to make the world’s best butter.
Lewis Road Creamery’s Premium Butter lightly salted is made with churned full-fat cream from a mixed herd by Canary Food Innovators in Te Rapa, Hamilton.
Smith said the Lewis Road Creamery’s Premium Butter lightly salted is the perfect balance of texture and flavour “It’s an absolute honour to win this award and so brilliant to have butter recognised in the awards,” says Lewis Road Creamery Marketing Director, Angela Weeks.
Below is one of the anonymous judges of the butter
Lewis Road Creamery achieved 100 per cent award success with all entries receiving a medal. The Lewis Road Creamery Artisan butter won a silver medal and the Lewis Road Creamery Premium Butter unsalted received a bronze.
* Gold, Silver & Bronze medal winners’ lists are available upon request or on the NZSCA website (click ‘winners’ on left of page) www.nzsca.org.nz/cheese-awards
Lipids Seminar on Infat
Invita Ltd recently brought together 5 Advanced Lipids senior personnel to conduct an excellent half day seminar on the specialty fat Infat. Advanced lipids are a joint-venture between AAK (Sweden) and Enzymotec (Israel). Their branded product Infat is also known as sn-2 palmitate or beta palmitate which is the product of enzymatic interesterification.
This fat mimics the main fat in human breast milk in terms of behaviour on breakdown in the gut. In normal vegetable oils palmitic acid is predominantly in the one and three positions. On digestion these fats breakdown to yield palmitic acid which can precipitate with calcium as calcium soaps. Infat contains palmitic acid at the two position, which does not breakdown to give free palmitic acid. If the wrong structure of triglycerides are used in breast milk substitutes in the following conditions may occur, poor fat absorption, poor calcium absorption accompanied by hard stools and discomfort. Many branded infant formula companies are now using Infat.
The seminar included presentations by Shoshi Tessler, Enzymotec VP Nutrition R&D, and Bodil Granroth of Advanced Lipids. The latter gave not only a comprehensive review of the chemistry surrounding the product, but also gave a succinct and updated view on sourcing sustainable palm oil and the worrying issue of MCPD esters.
For more information contact Virginia Scott at Invita.
Food Chemistry
Professor Laurence Melton is now the editor of Food Chemistry, the prestigious Food Science journal.
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/foodchem