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Title: NUSUN, THE NEW FACE OF U.S. SUNFLOWER OIL

Author
item KLEINGARTNER, LARRY - NATL SUNFLOWER, BISMARCK
item Warner, Kathleen

Submitted to: Cereal Foods World
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/3/2002
Publication Date: 3/3/2002
Citation: KLEINGARTNER, L., WARNER, K.A. NUSUN, THE NEW FACE OF U.S. SUNFLOWER OIL. CEREAL FOODS WORLD. 2002.

Interpretive Summary: Vegetable oils such as soybean, sunflower, and corn need additional processing and chemical additives to be suitable for the 8 billion pounds/per year frying oil industry. In the past, oils needed to be hydrogenated or hardened to use for restaurant frying and snack food frying; however, this process adds trans fatty acids to the oil. Trans fatty acids affect the body in a similar manner to saturated fats. A new oil has been developed that does not need hydrogenation to be used in frying. In frying tests comparing mid-oleic sunflower oil (known as NuSun) with traditional sunflower oil, tortilla chips and french fried potatoes had better flavor when fried in mid-oleic sunflower oil than sunflower oil if the oils were used for long periods of frying. French fried potatoes prepared in mid- oleic sunflower oil tasted better than potatoes fried in hydrogenated vegetable oil that is commonly used in quick- service restaurants. Restaurants and food manufacturers that currently use hydrogenated vegetable oil for frying now have an alternative oil that produces more healthful and better tasting fried food when mid-oleic sunflower oil is used.

Technical Abstract: Edible vegetable oils modified to have moderate levels of oleic acid have good potential as alternatives to hydrogenated oils currently used for frying in restaurants and for food manufacturing. To evaluate end use performance of mid-oleic sunflower oil (also known as NuSun), frying tests were conducted using tortilla chips. Other oils tested were commodity sunflower oil, high oleic sunflower oil and hydrogenated soybean oil. Overall flavor quality scores of fresh tortilla chips showed differences between oil types. For example, chips fried in either NuSun oil or sunflower oil had significantly higher overall flavor quality scores than chips fried in high oleic sunflower oil. The intensity of fried food flavor was significantly higher in the chips fried in either NuSun or sunflower oil compared to the chips fried in high oleic sunflower oil. Quality scores for chips fried in NuSun showed little change over frying time indicating good oil stability; however, quality of chips fried in sunflower oil decreased quickly over frying time. When chips were aged for 4 months at 25C, no differences in overall flavor quality was noted between chips fried in NuSun and high oleic sunflower oils, indicating that the two oils provided comparable storage stability for chips. Based on the results of this study, NuSun oil provided better flavor quality during the early frying stages compared to high oleic sunflower oil and had comparable stability over frying time.