Pulsed Electric Field Treatment of Sweet Potatoes to Reduce Oil and Acrylamide in Kettle Chips

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to utilize pulsed electric field (PEF) technology to make sweet potato kettle chips (SPKC) healthier by lowering the amount of oil absorbed and reducing the amount of acrylamide formed during frying. Sweet potatoes were treated continuously in an Elea PEF Advantage Belt One system and prepared as SPKC, without peeling and sliced to a thickness of 1.7 mm. The specific energy for PEF application was set to either low (1.5 kJ/kg) or high (3.0 kJ/kg) with a field strength of 1.0 kV/cm and a pulse width of 6 μm. Batches of 500 g unrinsed potato slices were fried in canola oil at 130 °C for 360 s. The oil content in 3.0 g of fried SPKC was 1.39 g or 46.3%, whereas the oil content was 37.9% for high and 37.7% for low PEF-treatment conditions. Acrylamide (AA) in the fried SPKC was quantified by mass spectrometry to be 0.668 μg/g in the non-PEF control and 0.498 μg/g for low and 0.370 μg/g for high PEF treatment. The results of this study support the use of PEF in SPKC processing to reduce oil absorbance during frying by up to 9% and lower AA by up to 45%.

Keywords: acrylamide production; kettle chips; oil retention; pulsed electric field; triple quadrupole mass spectrometry.

Figure 1

The mechanism of formation for AA and melanoidin by the Maillard reaction from Asn and glucose, derived from Parker et al., 2012 [13].

Figure 2

Sweet potato kettle chips were prepared by rinsing the tubers, PEF treating, slicing to 1.7 mm thickness, frying at 130 °C, cooling, and packing in a nitrogen environment until they were analyzed. Created with BioRender.com URL (accessed on 16 July 2024) [38].