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Lipid Oxidation and Quality Division web site

AOCS Lipid Oxidation and Quality Division
Newsletter December 2007

Lipid Oxidation and Quality Division Profile, by Catherine Watkins
(from inform)

Division name: Lipid Oxidation and Quality Division

Division mission: The Lipid Oxidation and Quality (LOQ) Division is the primary group for professionals in lipid oxidation with a major focus in food applications. This Division is multidisciplinary with overlapping interests of individuals in other AOCS Divisions. The Lipid Oxidation and Quality Division members organize the annual meeting technical program in the areas of LOQ, organize international conferences, and contribute articles and books to AOCS publications. The Division encompasses the technical areas of flavor, instrumentation, chemical analyses, biological oxidation, antioxidants, nutraceuticals, processing, and mechanisms. The Division membership includes members from more than 40 countries with 40% from academic/research and 60% from industry.

Resources: A variety of publications available through AOCS Press at www.aocs.org/catalog; technical sessions at the AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo and periodic short courses.

Award: The Edwin Frankel Award for Best Paper in Lipid Oxidation and Quality is presented annually to the authors of the best paper relating to lipid oxidation or quality published during the past year in AOCS Press publications.

2007-2008 board members: Chairperson: Jim Barren, Kalsec Inc., jbarren@kalsec.com; Vice-Chairperson: Charlotte Jacobsen, Danish Institute for Fisheries Research, cja@difres.dk; Secretary/Treasurer: John Weaver, Kalsec Inc., jweaver@kalsec.com; Program Committee Representative: Afaf Kamal-Eldin, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, afaf.kamal-eldin@lmv.slu.se; Member-at-Large/Program Committee Representative: Usha Thiyam, University of Manitoba, thiyam@cc.umanitoba.ca; Member-at-Large/Awards: Jill Winkler, USDA ARS National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, jill.winkler@ars.usda.gov; Member-at-Large: Amy Richards, Food Science Australia, amy.richards@csiro.au; Member-at-Large: Shane Zhou, Kellogg Co., shane.zhou@kellogg.com; Immediate Past Chairperson: Clifford Hall, North Dakota State University, clifford.hall@ndsu.edu

Netlink: www.aocs.org/member/division/lipidox/

The AOCS LOQ Division will have the chance to participate in a beer-tasting training session at the 2008 Annual Meeting & Expo. Photo courtesy of Kalsec Inc.

LOQ Division to learn about beer tasting
There is a reason, other than social, for the AOCS Lipid Oxidation and Quality Division (LOQ) to produce a beer-tasting session at the 2008 Annual Meeting & Expo in Seattle, May 18-21, 2008.

"We thought it might be interesting because a large part of spoilage in beer is related to lipid oxidation," Division Chairperson Jim Barren explains. Barren, it turns out, is a professionally trained beer taster as part of his work as research manager at Kalsec, Inc. (Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA).

LOQ Division members should be forewarned, however: There will only be room for 50 people at the inaugural event, tentatively scheduled for the afternoon of Monday, May 19. "We're doing this on a trial basis," notes Barren, adding that Kalsec's master brewer, Mike Babb, will "run the show."

Babb will take participants through a typical beer-tasting training session involving some standard oxidation flavors—some pleasurable and some not. By the end of the session, participants should have a working knowledge of how to taste beer ("we'll teach them several techniques for getting flavors into the olfactory cavity"), what tastes really wonderful (Barren is a fan of linalool, a hop oil), and what to avoid and why.

The latter turned out to be particularly useful recently for Barren who, while traveling, sat with a colleague in an airport bar. To kill time, they both ordered draft beers. But only the colleague drank his, because Barren's trained nose identified the presence of diacetyl notes in the beer, signaling a possible problem with microbial contamination.

"The colleague thought I was nuts," Barren reports.

The language of beer tasting is similar to that of wine tasting, he says, in that both require a flavor lexicon in order for trained testers to communicate. A key flavor that Barren had difficulty learning to detect is known as "paper," which indicates the presence of trans-2-nonenal, a typical fatty acid oxidation product. Then there is the familiar rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulfide, which is actually a good sign because—at a low level—it means the beer is fresh.

If the trial beer tasting training session is a hit at next year's Annual Meeting & Expo, the LOQ Division will most probably do it again, Barren says, adding that a similar event he and Babb have done locally in Michigan has had an "unbelievable response."

In addition to the beer tasting, the Division will, of course, produce its usual high-quality technical sessions. The group has added a new technical session on lipid oxidation in sterols and, as always, the meeting creates the chance for members to extend their network of professional contacts.

"I think one of the greatest benefits of Division membership is putting faces to the names in the literature," Barren says. "It means I know just who to call for help whenever I am faced with a new project."

Also in this newsletter:

Message From the Chair, by Jim Barren

Newsletter Sponsorship

Member Highlight: Clifford Hall, Ph.D.

Technical Session Highlights

Bylaw Changes

AOCS, 2710 S. Boulder, Urbana, IL 61802-6996 USA