The ever growing utilization of fast food determined the expansion of an industry of pre-fried and fried products. The understanding of the changes that the oil undergoes during the frying processes is outstanding because it may lead to the optimization of such processes as well as to improvements on the quality of both frying oil and the finished product. The purpose of the present study was to determine the alteration levels of different vegetable oils, sunflower, soybean and corn, in the frying process of snacks frozen pre-fried meat coated product. The frying sessions were carried out at 180ºC temperature, 0.3 cm-1surface/volume ratio and 12 hours overall heating time. As for the snacks, the moisture rate and lipids analyses were performed; for the oils, total polar compounds, free fatty acids and peroxide indices were determined. No analysis presented any alteration above the limits recommended by some countries. Therefore, it was concluded that the conditions established in the frying process are safe, suggesting that all of the oils were fit for the frying, being the corn oil the one of the highest oxidative stability.
Vegetable oils; frying; total polar compounds
