ABSTRACT
Of all the chemical reactions that degrade the quality of foods during storage, lipid oxidation unequivocally causes the most pervasive damage and poses the greatest challenge for the food industry to control. During the low-fat/no-fat era when lipids were being taken out of foods, this troublesome series of reactions lost industrial and research attention alike, although some aspects continued to be studied for their medical relevance. Lipid oxidation was denitely not “sexy science” and it compelled little interest. However, that situation is now slowly changing with the resurgence of food formulations that include essential polyunsaturated fatty acids for health. Whether in endogenous triacylglycerols or phospholipids or in oils added as nutraceuticals, polyunsaturated fatty acids are prone to oxidation and not only degrade on their own, but they also broadcast oxidation to other critical molecules by reactions of their intermediates and products, thereby affecting nearly all aspects of food properties and sensory quality. The same reactions occurring physiologically in cells and tissues contribute to aging, cancer, atherosclerosis, dementias, and a wide range of other pathologies. Thus, there are once again strong driving forces to more fully and accurately understand the mechanisms of lipid oxidation, how reaction conditions affect the process, how oxidizing lipids interact with other biologically important molecules, and how the process can be controlled.
