A walk amongst the Journal’s Lipid Milestones (25 years)

November 2024

Laurence Eyres

When Anne Scott started to develop the journal almost 20 years ago, there was already a loyal group of enthusiasts to help produce content. These included professor Laurie Melton, the late Peter Hawkins, Graeme Summers, and a few other stalwarts. We had started to produce a simple editorial for ourselves and the journal a few years prior. Oils and fats news was started after our several conferences and has kept going since then. In that time, we have seen the unlimited growth of alternative and daft science that has been termed the” March of unreason.” To counter this, my editorials have always echoed the paid jobs that I have undertaken and the advice of expert professionals in the field. This also reflects the objective technical advice given to my friends when switching margarine to butter when I moved from the edible oils industry to the dairy sector.

 Clinical chemistry, summary of cholesterol analyses.

My first job in NZ (1972) following deportation from the UK, was in the field of clinical diagnostics and chemistry. Working for pathologists and interacting with people in the business was a great first job and the learnings stayed with me throughout my career and when I moved into food.

The job involved going around abattoirs and freezing works to collect blood, which was then brought back to the laboratory for sterile filtering and freezing/freeze drying. My first good mate in NZ Bernie Cowell introduced me to the NZIC, concrete mixing, chain sawing and backing trailers. The blood collection just after dawn in the Bombay hills, also involved rabbit shooting which then led to new culinary arts. It was fun for a while but then the novelty wore off. It did however stimulate my interest in clinical chemistry and diagnostics. The analysis of lipids like cholesterol and enzymes was, and still is vitally important in medical diagnostics.

Table 1 Lipid analyses

A typical analysis retired old (male) Lipid analyses	Ideal ranges disease free	Pre-Statins	Post statin
			20mg/day
Cholesterol	<4.0	4.3	3.2
HDL Cholesterol	>1.0	>1.0	1.33
LDL cholesterol	<1.8	2.6	1.5
Triglyceride	<1.7	1	0.7

Much evidence has accumulated that implicates the oxidative modification of low‐density lipoprotein (LDL) in the early stages of atherogenesis. The antioxidant nutrients alpha‐tocopherol, ascorbic acid, and beta‐carotene have been shown to inhibit in vitro LDL oxidation. In addition, they have been shown to increase the resistance of LDL to oxidation when given to animals and humans. Because plasma levels of these nutrients can be increased by dietary supplementation with minimal side effects, they may show promise in the prevention of coronary artery disease.

				Comment
				Reduce with diet
				Reduce omega 3
				Drug reduction
				“

New Zealand health guidelines recommend these healthy cholesterol levels: ▪ total cholesterol – less than 4 mmol/L ▪ LDL cholesterol – less than 1.8 mmol/L ▪ HDL cholesterol – greater than one mmol/L ▪ triglycerides – less than 1.7 mmol/L ▪ total chol/HDL ratio – less than 4.

As a complete change the move to the edible oils business (1974) brought about a whole new perspective on my occupation and the academic world underpinning developments.

Frying oils and stability

Abels Ltd, then the leader in the edible oils business had a market dominant position in frying fats. My long-time mate and colleague Geoff Webster, still a consultant was once known as The Frying Doctor after all the demanding work advising frying outlets and take away establishments. Many is the time when walking into a takeout establishment, would your eyes water, due to the lachrymatory effect of acrolein from the breakdown fat. In recent years following blood- pressure raising unscientific articles on smoke points, we published a review of smoke point determination and meanings. The smoke point is directly correlated with the FFA level in the fat. For a high smoke point, one needs an exceptionally low FFA which means fully refined.

Eyres, (2015), Food NZ

Antioxidants

This was the scientific area of free radicals and the mechanism of antioxidants in technology and in disease studies. Professor Tony kettle FRS was an early researcher in this field and presented his work at a seminar early in 2000.

In the late eighties this author and my colleagues, when in the edible oil business, lobbied for the acceptance of TBHQ as a permitted food additive. In modern times, due to nutritional concerns, it is preferable to seek techniques of preserving the integrity of the oil without the use of synthetic antioxidants of dubious nutritional status.

Vitamin E and its main isomers have always been an important natural antioxidant. As we have increased our intake of polyunsaturates, we need in vivo antioxidants to deal with the oxidation, particularly of cholesterol. Other natural extracts like Rosemary oil are also particularly useful.

The science explosion in omega three.

Our group has always been interested around fish, omega three, and nutrition. Our secretary did an excellent job of summarizing the lipid content and PUFA content of NZ fish taken from the original detailed work by Crop and Food Research.

“I have done some computing,” said Dr. Dyerberg “and since we published the first paper in 1971 there are now some 14,000 published papers [on omega 3], including close to 8,000 human studies.”

Dyerberg, then in his mid-thirties, wrote: “We feel strongly that the last word in the problem: dietary habits – especially related to the intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids – plasma lipid and lipoprotein concentrations, and coronary atherosclerosis has not yet been spoken.”

Infant nutrition and formulae

With several researchers form the Auckland Medical school we did work on optimizing infant formulae to get close to mothers’ milk. Anny Dentener has been a particular expert in the field of Dairy Technology and nutrition.

Discussion: Should infant formula lipids contain cholesterol?

L Eyres, A Dentener, S Xiong, J Zhou - Food New Zealand, 2020

Infant nutrition is a major food industry segment especially in strong dairy-orientated countries like New Zealand and Australia. The latest figures from Statistics NZ show infant formula exports in 2019 of about 120,000 tonnes. The business grew by 30% over the year before to earn export revenue of more than $1.7 billion NZD. For comparison, exports in 2015 were worth $450 million. Four major blenders, packers and exporters dominate the trade – Fonterra, Synlait, Danone Nutricia and GMP. A2 Milk markets and sells a major brand of infant formula in China but is not a manufacturer. New Zealand accounts for about 7% of the global trade in formula. It is a tricky and emotional business due to the decline worldwide in breast feeding.

 Olive oil

When the NZ olive oil industry was in its infancy, Margaret Edwards, and I did Nationwide seminars on the basics of achieving excellent quality. Key examples of process improvement were the elimination of any brass and copper and reducing oxygen absorption to a minimum. Around 25 years ago NZ olive oil was not great, these days it is fantastic and wins gold medals in overseas competitions. This shows the value of a detailed scientific approach to food processing. Also, Food NZ via Professor Charmian O Connor did a detailed paper on detecting adulteration of olive oil.

Olive oil in frying is an ongoing topic. It is great for shallow pan frying but is a tad expensive and has too low a smoke point for deep frying.

Food New Zealand

Volume 19Issue 3June 2019

Avocado oil

25 years ago, avocado oil was a bit of an unknown quantity and when at Massey University we authored a paper on its composition and sensory properties. Since then, Professor Marie Wong, Allan Woolf and co-workers have produced countless original works on avocado oil and its many aspects. They have produced many papers, conference presentations and text references. They first showed that in the early days, the oil content of avocados was directly correlated with the total solids.

Professor Selina Wang (UC Davis) a keynote speaker and friend, has published several articles showing that of 82% of avocado oil in the USA is adulterated, hence why the bottles are so cheap and are threatening the existence of decent quality oil from honest producers.

Both avocado and olive oil have separate technical and marketing objectives with refining these two gourmet oils. In conjunction with a specialist oil refiner and a Massey PhD student we produced a recent review article on the refining and deodorizing of avocado oil. The key principles reported in this article refer also to most vegetable oils.

Food NZ, (2024)

 

They will be presenting a workshop on this area at the NZIFST conference in 2025.in Palmerston North

Recent work has looked at minimizing GE and MCPD esters, especially in the area of physical refining with no caustic pretreatment.

 

Coconut oil

Coconut oil has always been at the basis of many products in the World Food industry. in my first years in New Zealand in the oils and fats business, copra was imported from the Pacific islands then pressed into crude coconut oil which was then refined bleached, hydrogenated, interesterified and deodorised into many distinct products. Due to urban pressures, the refining industry in the middle of Auckland disappeared to be replaced by housing and offices. So, for almost one hundred years coconut oil has been a stalwart ingredient in the World Food industry, then relatively recently food and health claims appeared around its benefits. This worried the health professionals who were trying to get consumers to move to a less saturated lipid diet.

Following almost fraudulent claims on the benefits of coconut oil around seven years ago, several researchers viewed all the literature and reported the conclusions that there was no basis for any health claims. (Eyres et.al., Food NZ, (2015) (However, this does not demonize coconut oil. Some of my best friends are coconut producers and the oil has its place in the food industry.

Palm oil-Kurt Berger

When Kurt left Lyons after a long and distinguished career, he was asked to look at developing palm oil as an edible oil by the WHO. This led to him being appointed by the Malaysian government to start up and head PORIM. PORIM, the Palm oil Research Institute of Malaysia became over the years a leading research and development centre in the world of edible oils. At the start of the development the laboratories were in a tin shed with rudimentary equipment. Many early conferences were held which paralleled the building and development of modern refining with many innovations coming to fruition under Kurt’s supervision. Kurt and his wife Margaret were extremely friendly and hospitable hosts when they were in residence in Kuala Lumpur and hosted many networking events at which lifelong friendships were cemented. They became frequent visitors to NZ and spoke at many of our meetings. They were incredibly patient with the noisy group of Merseyside edible oil techno’s who were good at combining hard work and knowledge gathering with celebrating hard (networking).

These were exciting years for physical refining, dry fractionation, crystallisation and packing of bakery fats and selective hydrogenation.

Conferences and memorable guests and visitors

Over the years we have held several international fats conferences and held many seminars (reference). The first international conference on Oils and fats was in 1983.The last one was in 2000.They were great meetings with lots of international researchers.

Co-workers (who are very patient)

Ruth Eyres, Michael and Graham Eyres, Marie Wong, Geoff Webster, George Lim, Selina Wang, Allan Woolf, Anne Scott. Too many friends have already left this earth.

References (not exhaustive)

Handbook of Australasian Edible Oils Edited by Charmian J O’Connor, Managing Editor Laurence Eyres, Oils and Fats Specialist Group of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry, Auckland, New Zealand. 2007,

Fats, Fatty acids and Cholesterol, Food NZ vol 29,4, p143 (1999)

Omega-3 fatty acids and NZ fish Food NZ vol 29,4, p147(1999), part 2 page 187

Plant sterols review, NZ Food Journal ,30,3, p116,2000)

Processing Virgin and refined olive and avocado oils, L Eyres - Food New Zealand, 2024

doi: 10.1093/nutrit/nuw002Nutrition Reviews Vol. 74(4):267–280

Should infant formula lipids contain cholesterol?

Food New Zealand Journal Article 01 October 2020

(Eyres et.al., Food NZ, (2015)

Eyres, L. (2015). Frying oils: Selection, smoke points and potential deleterious effects for health. Food New Zealand, 15(1), 30–31.

Eyres, L. (2007) In Handbook of Australasian Edible Oils, Oils and Fats

Specialist Group N.Z. p. 214 Technology, 13, 8 Gibon, V. et.al. Inform magazine, (2023), vol. 34 (9), p.24.