The effect of potatoes conventioal cooking methods on the amount of nitrosamines formation

Background: Nitrosamine is one of the carcinogen chemical compounds, which can enter the human body through consumption of food. The potato is the world's root vegetable consumed by many people and due to it´s potential for nitrosamine formation during the cooking process, it needs to be considered for public health matter. Objectives: There is a larg amount of literature on the omlurrence, formation and mitigation of nitrosamine in meat product are alredy available but information about nitrosamine formation in cooked vegetable is rare. In this study we evaluated the effect of conventional potato cooking method inclouding boiling and frying potatoe on N-nitrosamine compound formation and nitrite reduction. Material and methods: The amount of four nitrosamines, namely N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA), N-nitrosopiperidine (NPIP) and N-nitrosopyrrolidine (NPYR) were determined in four different potato baking methods. A number of 48 samples of potatoes were collected from Hamadan city. Fried potato samples were roasted at 180 ° C and boiled potato samples were scalded at 120 ° C. Nitrosamine levels were measured using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS) and spectrophotometry was used for measuring nitrite. Results: Fried samples that were measured by gas chromatography method had the highest average levels of nitrosamine compounds, that was NDMA 5.09 ng kgˉ¹ and NDEA 8.66 ng kgˉ¹. Among the mentioned backing methods, the NDEA showed highest level of nitrosamine with mean of 3.484 ng kg ˉ¹ and then NDMA with the mean of 1.8285 ng kg ˉ¹. Based on the analysis of the potato samples by spectrophotometry the highest levels of nitrite was in raw potatoes with a mean of 2.43mg/kgand the lowest levels of nitrite were detected in boiled potatoes with an average of 1.172 mg kgˉ¹. The highest reduction of nitrite was in boiling in distilled water method to 51.80% and the lowest reduction was in superficial frying method to 13.60%. Conclusions: In conventional potatoes baking nitrosamine was formed, there was positive effect of thermal treatment and nitrosamine formation, except NPYR and NPIP that not detected in this study. The most nitrosamine formation was relating to the surface fried samples. Nitrites amount in baked potatoes decreased. Generally amount of nitrosamine in baked potatoes samples was lower than amleptable limit