Monitoring the physicochemical features of sunflower oil and French fries during repeated microwave frying and deep-fat frying

This study investigates the effects of repeated microwave frying at different power levels (360W, 600W, 900W) and deep-fat frying on sunflower oil and French fries. The intermittent batch frying cycle was repeated 15 times a day during five consecutive days. The fatty acid profile and physicochemical properties including free fatty acid (FFA), extinction coefficient (K-270), total polar compound (TPC), color, viscosity, refractive index of the sunflower oil were determined each day. At the end of the frying period, the highest values of viscosity (76.29cp) and refractive index (1.4738) were detected in microwave frying at 900W power level. TPC level exceeded 25% after the third day of microwave frying at all power levels. The FFA values during microwave frying increased progressively from 0.157% to 0.320-0.379% on the fifth day. The loss of polyunsaturated fatty acids was 37-53% more in the case of microwave frying. The oil quality during microwave frying did not have a significant impact on the oil absorption and total color change of the French fries. Microwave frying, even at higher levels, provided lower oil (8.60-12.32% wb) and moisture contents (35.47-41.24%) compared to deep frying. Microwave frying caused longer processing time and significantly higher levels of degradation of the sunflower oil at all power levels compared to deep frying. However, microwave frying has the advantage of reducing oil absorption. The oil content of French fries was lowered by 20-33% (wb) at the highest power level.