Mitigation of 3‐MCPD and glycidyl esters within the production chain of vegetable oils especially palm oil

Abstract

Abstract In 2007 the oil producing industry and the downstream food processing industry were worried by the announcement that fatty acid esters of 3‐MCPD and later in 2008 that glycidyl esters have been found in different types of vegetable oils after processing. The reason for the concern was that the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment assumed in a first statement the complete degradation of the esters to free 3‐MCPD and glycidol both classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as possible and probably, respectively, carcinogenic to humans. In the meantime a lot of research has been done on these heat‐induced compounds to mitigate their formation during oil processing and today the content in vegetable oils could be remarkably lower if all approaches were implemented. This paper summarizes the different mitigation strategies and shows their effect on lowering the amount of 3‐MCPD and glycidyl esters in refined vegetable oils.