Use of the activation energy concept to estimate the quality reduction of packaged olive oil

摘要

In the present study, the probability of packaged olive oil not reaching the end of its shelf life, P safe, was used as a quality factor to evaluate the time taken for olive oils stored at various conditions to reach the end of their shelf lives. P safe was used to comment on the activation energy required during the degradation process per actual or simulated case, and hexanal was used as the main quality-related indicator. Based on the month after bottling at which P safe reached 70%, the activation energy of an “equivalent” chemical reaction, representative of overall quality degradation, was calculated for several storage conditions. Using the differences between activation energies estimated using the above method, we found the most important factors influencing the shelf life of the packaged olive oil to be the initial storage period in the dark, the role of elevated temperatures, and the presence of light, either continuous or in alternating patterns, in association with the packaging materials used in this study. These results were in qualitative agreement with previously reported experimental observations and simulations, indicating the validity of using P safe, and of activation energies calculated from it, to predict the shelf life of packaged olive oil.