Amino phospholipids and lecithins as mitigating agents for acrylamide in asparagine/glucose and asparagine/2,4-decadienal model systems

Abstract

The role of amino phospholipids and lecithins for mitigating acrylamide formation in asparagine/glucose and asparagine/2,4-decadienal model systems was analysed in order to explore the possibility of the use of these common additives in decreasing acrylamide content in heated foodstuffs. Dipalmitoylphosphatidylethanolamine (PE), but not dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (PC), decreased the acrylamide determined in both model systems. In addition, the protective effect depended on the concentration of the amino phospholipid and was higher in the asparagine/glucose system than in the asparagine/2,4- decadienal system. In fact, the protection offered by PE was similar to that of glycine, therefore suggesting that both compounds had similar protective mechanisms, more likely as a consequence of the presence of a nucleophilic primary amino group in their molecules. However, ethanolamine was more protective than PE in the asparagine/glucose system and less protective than PE in the asparagine/2,4-decadienal system, which might be related to the different hydrophilic nature of both compounds. Analogously to PE, soybean and egg lecithin also mitigated acrylamide formation, mainly in the asparagine/glucose system. All these results point to lecithins as potential acrylamide mitigating additives in the formulation of food products. They may also be used in combination with amino acids and proteins. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.