Adulteration of palm cooking oil with inedible polymer: An especially perfidious type of edible oil fraud is the dissolution of inedible plastic material, such as polypropylene or polyethylene packaging material, in hot cooking oil during the frying process. This is supposed to prolong the shelf life and the crispness of deep-fried snack food, not surprisingly with serious health implications. Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) in combination with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) provides a straightforward method to analyze samples directly with minimal preparation, to detect polymers in palm cooking oil, as done in this study.

Find this method and many others in our Food Fraud Database.

Picture Credit Susanne Kuehne 

Posted on 4 October 2021