Thermooxidative stability of soybean oil, beef tallow and palm oil during frying of steamed noodles

Thermooxidative stabilities of soybean oil, beef tallow and palm oil were studied during frying of steamed noodles. Steamed noodles were fried in oils for 70 sec at the interval of 30 min. The frying oil was taken every 8 hrs for the analysis of peroxide value (PV) and free fatty acid (FFA) content, fatty acid composition, and tocopherol and tocotrienol content. A little change was shown in PV and FFA content in soybean oil during frying; on the other hand, rapid increase in beef tallow and palm oil was observed. Unsaturated fatty acid content was the highest in soybean oil, followed by palm oil and beef tallow. While fatty acid composition in soybean oil was not changed during frying, unsaturated fatty acid content decreased and saturated fatty acid increased in beef tallow and palm oil, which showed susceptibility to the oxidation. The ratio of linoleic acid to palmitic acid did not show difference with frying time in soybean oil: however, it decreased in other oils with a high correlation with frying time and higher decreasing rate in palm oil was observed. These suggested that soybean oil was the most stable to thermooxidation and the stability was followed by beef tallow and palm oil. Tocopherol was disappeared during frying and 87.5, 81.1, and 73.1% were remained in soybean oil after 8, 16 and 24 hour frying, respectively. Also the rate decreased in the order of . However, 34.2 and 169.0 ppm tocopherol and tocotrienol which were present in control samples of beef tallow and palm oil were completely disappeared by 8 hr frying. Therefore, high thermooxidative stability of soybean oil resulted from higher residual amount of tocopherol during frying, and lower stability of palm oil than beef tallow was partly due to high degree of unsaturation.