High pressure processing (HPP) is an alternative mild-technology used in the past decades to sterilize and pasteurize
food matrices such as meat and seafood. HPP obeys thermodynamic principles, namely Le Chatelier's
lawof equilibriumand the isostatic rule, both of which account formicrobial inactivation. HPP has the advantage
of ensuring reduction of pathogens and spoilage in foods, and preserving the organoleptic characteristics of the
product that are compromised in traditional heat treatments. However, high pressure changes the thermodynamic
equilibrium of chemical reactions. This is the case of lipid oxidation, in which kinetics is accelerated in
the presence of high hydrostatic pressure.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on the response of lipid components to HPP, especially considering
the deleterious outcomes that secondary products of oxidation have on the final product. The objective of this
work is to review the literature on the effect of this “mild-technology” in the degradation of lipid fraction of foods.
We discuss qualitative and quantitative determinations, as well as the thermodynamic and chemical interpretations
underlying the phenomenon.
Industrial relevance: In this work we reviewed the literature concerning the effect of high-pressure processing
(HPP) on lipid oxidation. Since 1990s HPP has been used as an alternative to thermal treatments to pasteurize
and sterilize food products, such asmeats and seafood.Many of these rawmaterials have a high content of lipids
(among them trialglycerols and cholesterol-derivative) that are susceptible to oxidation. During the last decade,
there has been increasing interest on the response of lipid components to HPP, especially considering the deleterious
outcomes that secondary oxidation-derivative molecules have on the final product. This review intends to
summarize and discuss the data reported in literature, contextualizing the oxidation within the broad transformation
of biological structures due to hydrostatic pressure. A better understanding of the underlying phenomena
could lead to the development of predicting models which could be use in food industry.