Eggs have a very high content of cholesterol (about 400 mg/
100 g of edible portion) [32], so the formation of COPS has been
widely studied in egg powders and egg products. The large
consumption of industrialized egg-containing foods, such as bakery
products and pasta, has favored the utilization of egg as powders
[33], which are characterized by a better microbiological safety,
a smaller volume as compared to unshelled or liquid eggs [34] and
a low water content. The most common systems to produce egg
powders are freeze-drying and spray-drying; the first provides the
best ingredient overall quality but, due to its relatively high cost,
spray-drying is most widely used at commercial level. The quality
of the egg powder lipid fraction can be greatly influenced by processing
and storage conditions [35,36]. One of the most critical
chemical modifications that can occur is lipid oxidation, including
cholesterol oxidation, due to the egg powders’ large surface area. In
fact, because of the high surface activity of sterols, they tend to
migrate to the oilewater interface, where oxidative stress is high
[1]; this behavior would suggest that cholesterol locates at the
interface beforewater removal, remaining at the surface level of the
egg powder and being thus directly exposed to air and consequently
to oxidation. The large surface area will be further decisive
when egg powder and egg-containing food are subjected to light