A method for gaining a deeper insight into the aroma profile of olive oil

Daisuke Suzuki,Yuko Sato,Hirotoshi Tamura,Akane Mori

doi:10.1038/s41538-021-00098-z

Daisuke Suzuki, Yuko Sato + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41538-021-00098-z

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Abstract

Volatile compounds in food play a crucial role in affecting food quality and consumer preference, but the volatile compounds in olive oil are not fully understood due to the matrix effect of oil. The oiling-out assisted liquid–liquid extraction (OA-LLE), which we previously reported, is an effective method for isolating volatile compounds from edible oils with a strong matrix effect. However, when we apply OA-LLE to extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), the aromatic extracts contain non-volatile compounds such as pigments because of solvent-based extraction. Solvent-assisted flavor evaporation (SAFE) can remove such non-volatiles from extracts, but SAFE is affected by a matrix effect during distillation, resulting in a decrease in performance. By combining the advantages of OA-LLE and SAFE, we propose an effective approach, OA-LLE followed by SAFE (OA-LLE + SAFE), for extracting aroma compounds from EVOO. The “two assists” should help to better understand the native aroma profile of EVOO.

Highlights

Olive oil, which is one of the most valuable and oldest oils, is extracted from olive fruit (Olea europaea L.)
Considering the above, we focused on the advantages of out assisted liquid–liquid extraction (OA-LLE) and Solvent-assisted flavor evaporation (SAFE) and hypothesize that OA-LLE followed by SAFE (OA-LLE + SAFE) can effectively extract volatile compounds from olive oil
Correlation analysis revealed that PC1 and PC2 correlated with boiling point, r = 0.4157 (p < 0.05) and r = −0.3494 (p < 0.05), respectively. These results indicate that OA-LLE + SAFE can isolate the aroma compounds with a low boiling point and the compounds with a relatively high boiling point

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Olive oil, which is one of the most valuable and oldest oils, is extracted from olive fruit (Olea europaea L.). The OA-LLE extracts had a strong olive oil-like aroma These results indicate that most of the volatile compounds in HS-SPME Hojiblanca Spain 5.0. In contrast to the OA-LLE extracts, the extracts obtained using OA-LLE + SAFE were colorless and transparent (Supplementary Fig. 1c) This result indicates that the non-volatiles contained in the dichloromethane layer were removed during SAFE. 41 aroma compounds comprising 5 acids, 16 alcohols, 5 aldehydes, 7 esters, 5 hydrocarbons, and 3 ketones were extracted from 5.0 g of EVOO using OA-LLE + SAFE (Fig. 2 and Table 2). Applying OA-LLE + SAFE to EVOO overcomes the matrix effect of oil and removes the non-volatiles from the aromatic extracts. To obtain a deeper insight into the aroma profile of EVOO, we hypothesize that performing SAFE after several accumulations of the dichloromethane layer (OA-LLE) could further concentrate volatile compounds in the extracts. We performed OA-LLE three npj Science of Food (2021) 16

Suzuki et al 3

Findings

DISCUSSION