Sensory stability and oxidation of fish oil enriched milk is affected by milk storage temperature and oil quality

The experiments evaluated the influence of fish oil quality and cold storage temperature on the oxidative stability of milk emulsions containing 1.0% w/w milk fat and 0.5% w/w of either a pure fish oil or a fish oil:rapeseed oil mixture. The results showed that it was possible to produce a pasteurised milk product enriched with the important n-3 PUFA from fish oil with acceptable sensory characteristics if (1) the emulsions were based on a mixture of fish oil and rapeseed oil and (2) the initial peroxide value (PV) of the added oil blend was below 0.5meqkg−1.

The sensory analysis showed a clear distinction between emulsions based on oil with PV 0.1 and 0.5meqkg−1, whereas the PV and the gas chromatographic (GC) analysis of volatile oxidation products were not sensitive enough to reveal these differences clearly. The GC analyses showed that the onset of formation of the volatiles was earlier with increased storage temperature in the range of 2–9°C.