Acrylamide in Ready-to-Eat Potato Products

Abstract: The formation of the suspected carcinogenic compound acrylamide has become a noticed problem in the heat processing of several types of carbohydrate rich food items. The European Union is currently working to mitigate these levels, where one strategy is to implement a new regulation with benchmark levels for acrylamide in different products. The regulation also includes recommendations on how to reduce the levels of acrylamide for different types of food products. This new regulation forces food producers within Europe to work actively in order to reduce acrylamide levels if such are currently exceeded. French fries and other potato based products are food products in which high levels of acrylamide can form during heat treatment. These levels are problematic and therefore these products are included in the regulation. This study aimed at evaluating how different combinations of temperature and time of the cooking preparation affects the formation of acrylamide in three different potato products. A requirement in this study was also that the products would still meet the sensorial qualities set by the producer, after changing these settings. Three different potato products from the producer Orkla Foods were included in the study; Pommes Frites, Pommes Criss Cut, and Klassiska Rösti. In the method, four different temperature settings including the current temperature recommendation and temperatures 5 °C, 15 °C, and 25 °C below the current instructions were tested. The different temperatures were also tested in combinations with different cooking times, in order to find combinations at each temperature that resulted in good sensorial qualities of the food items. The analytical method included quality control by carefully monitoring the temperature in the oven and in the food items, as well as a sensorial evaluation. The analytical method also included two different methods for colour analysis. The samples with combinations of temperature and time that gave good sensorial properties were sent in for analysis of acrylamide to a certified analysis laboratory. The results from the colour analysis were problematic to evaluate because of problems with the method. For a majority of the samples analysed the benchmark level was not exceeded, but it was exceeded slightly for the samples of the product Pommes Criss Cut. The findings of this study suggest that, from the few samples analysed for acrylamide in this study, the cooking temperature that resulted in the lowest acrylamide content for all three products was 220 °C.