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The Mediterranean diet is now well known worldwide and recognized as a nutrition reference model by the World Health Organization. Virgin olive oil, prepared from healthy and intact fruits of the olive tree only by mechanical means, is a basic ingredient, a real pillar of this diet. Its positive role in health has now been a topic of universal concern. The virtues of natural olive oil, and especially of extra virgin olive oil, are related to the quality of the fruits, the employment of advanced technologies, and the availability of sophisticated analytical techniques that are used to control the origin of the fruits and guarantee the grade of the final product. With the aim of enriching the recent multidisciplinary scientific information that orbits around this healthy lipid source, a new special issue of Foods journal has been published.

Two important classes of minor constituents of oils and fats are tocopherols and sterols. Both these classes are biologically active and they also affect the stability and performance of an oil at elevated temperatures. Tocopherols are phenolic antioxidants that react with free radicals and their concentration is reduced signifantly when the oil is heated. α-TocopheroI is lost faster during deep-fat frying than the beta, gamma and delta homologues. In the presence of stronger antioxidants, natural or synthetic, losses of α-tocopherol can be eliminated. Unchanged phytosterols naturally present in vegetable oils are believed to be beneficial for the health. Depending on the chemical structure, phytosterols may act as prooxidants or antioxidants. Sterols with an ethylidene group in the side chain have been found effective in retarding polymerisation at temperatures similar to those of deep-fat frying. Under unfavourable conditions (high temperature, presence of air) oxidation products are formed from sterols and a marked increase in the oxidation rate of the fat is observed. Oxidation products of the main phytosterols, β-sitosterol and stigmasterol, are: hydrocarbons (3,5-diene and 3,5,22-triene), mono-, di- and triunsaturated ketosteroids (4-en-3-one, 3,5-dien-7-one, 3,5,22-trien-7-one), 5,6-epoxy derivatives, 3,7-diols and pregnane derivatives. Other minor constituents which may affect the rate of degradation of unsaturated triacylglycerols at high temperatures are squalene, pigments and phospholipids. Squalene and phospholipids have both been reported to retard the degradation of unsaturated fatty acids under simulated frying conditions. High chlorophyll levels were found to increase the rate of tocopherol decomposition and formation of polymers in rape seed oil heated at 180°C.

Minor constituents of virgin olive oil are important for the remarkable stability of the oil in autoxidation, but the exact role and the extent to which each antioxidant factor contributes to the total antioxidant effect has not been thoroughly Investigated. In this study the role of α-tocopherol is explored at various acidity levels and at low concentrations of ortho-diphenols. A substrate of olive oil triacylglycerols devoid of prooxidant or antioxidant constituents was prepared from refined olive oil by column chromatography To tills substrate, slightly oxidized, the additives (oleic acid, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid and α-tocopherol) were added and the stability was assessed by periodical measurements of peroxide values. It was found that free fatty adds reduce mainly the protective activity of the ortho-diphenol. It is also concluded that α-tocopherol has a synergistic effect with the ortho-diphenols and contributes significantly to the retardation of peroxide formation. This is Important for oils poor in ortho-diphenols.