Spinach (Spinacia oleracea) powder as a natural food-grade antioxidant in deep-fat-fried products.

The addition of spinach (Spinacia oleracea) powder in flour dough as a natural antioxidant was investigated, and oxidation of frying oil and the lipid in fried products during frying was also studied. Flour dough with spinach powder was rolled into sheets of 0.1 cm thickness and then cut into squares to be fried. Each frying was performed in 160 degrees C soybean oil for 1 min, repeated every 20 min for 20 h. Fried samples were analyzed immediately or after being stored at 60 degrees C for 12 days under dark. The lipid content of fried dough was lower in samples with the addition of spinach powder. Spinach in the dough decreased accumulation of the polar compounds in soybean oil during frying but had little effect on the fried dough. It also reduced conjugated diene and aldehyde formation in the lipid of fried dough during storage. Improvement in lipid oxidative stability, presumably due to pigments in spinach, was more noticeable in the fried products during storage than in the frying oil.