Effect of innovative pre-treatments on mitigation of acrylamide formation in potato chips.

Title: Effect of innovative pre-treatments on the mitigation of acrylamide formation in potato chips Authors & affiliations: Maria Alessia Schouten1, Silvia Tappi1, Jessica Genovese1, Alessandra Di Francesco1, Elena Baraldi1, Manuela Cortese2, Giovanni Caprioli2, Simone Angeloni2, Sauro Vittori2, Pietro Rocculi1, Santina Romani1 1Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy 2School of Pharmacy, University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy Abstract: The EU Regulation 2017/2158 has established new acrylamide (AA) level benchmarks in different food. For this reason, food industries are interested in developing different processing methods to reduce the AA formation, and at the same time to maintain an acceptable quality of final products. Fried potatoes (French fries and chips) are the most vulnerable foods in terms of high content of AA formation, being rich in the main Maillard reaction substrates, such as free asparagine and reducing sugars. Among the strategies recently suggested for the reduction of AA in potato chips, pulsed electric fields (PEF) and yeast pre-treatments are promising, having the potentiality to reduce AA precursors in raw potato tissues. The aim of this research was to evaluate the reduction of AA formation in potato chips applying PEF andyeast dipping as innovative pre-treatments. In details, yeast Aureobasidium pullulans L1 was used, following the patented procedure n°102017000105265 (Mari M., Di Francesco A., Ugolini L.); PEF was applied using a lab-scale unit delivering rectangular shape pulses. Raw potato slices were submitted to: dipping in water (control); dipping in A. pullulans L1 water suspension (108 cells/ml); PEF followed by dipping in water or dipping in yeast water suspension, in order to investigate the synergistic effect of the two innovative pre-treatments. After frying the different potato samples were analysed for moisture, oil content, texture, colour, and AA content. It has been confirmed that the use of the yeast A. pullulans L1 as pre-treatment is able to promote the reduction of AA level in fried chips mainly at the longest dipping times. However, PEF pre-treatment followed by a water dipping (with or without yeast) was the most effective in reducing AA formation in fried potato chips.