`Hojiblanca Develops Olive Oil with Rosemary Extract Said to be Better for Frying - Olive Oil Times

Hojiblanca Develops Olive Oil with Rosemary Extract Said to be Better for Frying

By Julie Butler
Apr. 6, 2013 11:51 UTC

Antioxidant titans rose­mary extract and vir­gin olive oil together reduce a car­cino­gen found in pop­u­lar snacks such as french fries and potato crisps, Spanish researchers say.

Acrylamide, which can also dam­age cell DNA, forms in foods cooked at high heat and par­tic­u­larly in potato and cereal goods. Many health author­i­ties rec­om­mend reduc­ing expo­sure to it.

When con­ven­tional prod­ucts, such as sun­flower oil, are used for fry­ing, the level of acry­lamides increases with each use of the oil, accord­ing to Murcia-based nat­ural extracts com­pany Nutrafur and the Hojiblanca Cooperative Group, which has its head­quar­ters in Málaga.

But they claim to have devel­oped a way to make a high sta­bil­ity olive oil that pro­duces up to 80 per­cent lower lev­els of acry­lamides than other oils — even high-oleic sun­flower oil — while also pro­duc­ing pro­gres­sively less of the com­pound with each fry­ing cycle.

According to a patent appli­ca­tion by Hojiblanca pub­lished last July, the olive oil is said to have almost dou­ble the oxida­tive sta­bil­ity — which means it goes ran­cid much more slowly — than already very sta­ble vir­gin olive oil. This is attrib­uted to its 50 – 60mg/l con­tent of diter­pene phe­nols, com­pounds key to rose­mary extrac­t’s antiox­i­dant and anti-inflam­ma­tory kick.

With the European Food Safety Authority due soon to update its risk assess­ment of acry­lamide in food, Olive Oil Times spoke to Nutrafur pro­duc­tion man­ager Obdulio Benavente-García García, one of the inven­tors of the high sta­bil­ity olive oil, about its devel­op­ment.

Why did you add rose­mary extract?

Virgin olive oil not only has proven heart ben­e­fits, it nat­u­rally has the high­est level of antiox­i­dants of all fry­ing oils, but we sought to fur­ther increase its sta­bil­ity with other nat­ural antiox­i­dants so its final cost per fry cycle would be com­pet­i­tive with the much cheaper alter­na­tives usu­ally used in com­mer­cial food prepa­ra­tion, namely sun­flower, soy and corn oil.

The par­tic­u­lar rose­mary extract we use has the advan­tages of being both high in antiox­i­dants and sol­u­ble in olive oil.

What are the prospects of com­mer­cial suc­cess?

The ini­tial project was for a large fast food com­pany and the results were quite good. But that multi­na­tional decided not to pur­sue it because the olive oil gave their food too intense a fla­vor com­pared to veg­etable oil they had been using.

At the moment it’s dif­fi­cult to find a mar­ket because other oils used in indus­trial fry­ing are much cheaper than olive oil, although this one can be re-used more times. But we believe it’s a prod­uct that, once the eco­nomic sit­u­a­tion improves, could have a promis­ing future. After all, it doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily mean an increase in cost and has enor­mous advan­tages for con­sumer health over other oils.

Benavente-García García joined Julian Castillo Sánchez and Silvia López Feria as the inven­tors of the process.



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