It is also very easy to just do. Buy fries, extract fat in hexane, evaporate hexane and submit the fat you obtained for analysis.
Edit: It might even be possible to DIY the analysis if it is not commercially available: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4609978/.
(IR spectroscopy and AgNO3-DLC look somewhat accessible though I would have to look deeper into the topic to be sure.)
I’d be most interested in detecting hydroperoxides, which is easier than detecting trans fats. I don’t know how soluble a lipid hydroperoxide is in hexane, but isopropanol-hexane mixtures are often used for lipid extracts and would probably work better.
Evaporation could probably be done relatively safely by just leaving the extract at room temperature (I would definitely not advise heating the mixture at all) but you’d need good ventilation, preferably an outdoor space.
I think commercial LCMS/GCMS services are generally available to people in the USA/UK, and these would probably be the gold standard for detecting various hydroperoxides. I wouldn’t trust IR spectroscopy to distinguish the hydroperoxides from other OH-group containing contaminants when you’re working with a system as complicated as a box of french fries.
This seems like a huge civilizational inadequacy to me. This would be informative at large scale, and the cost would be very small.
It is also very easy to just do. Buy fries, extract fat in hexane, evaporate hexane and submit the fat you obtained for analysis.
Edit: It might even be possible to DIY the analysis if it is not commercially available: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4609978/. (IR spectroscopy and AgNO3-DLC look somewhat accessible though I would have to look deeper into the topic to be sure.)
I’d be most interested in detecting hydroperoxides, which is easier than detecting trans fats. I don’t know how soluble a lipid hydroperoxide is in hexane, but isopropanol-hexane mixtures are often used for lipid extracts and would probably work better.
Evaporation could probably be done relatively safely by just leaving the extract at room temperature (I would definitely not advise heating the mixture at all) but you’d need good ventilation, preferably an outdoor space.
I think commercial LCMS/GCMS services are generally available to people in the USA/UK, and these would probably be the gold standard for detecting various hydroperoxides. I wouldn’t trust IR spectroscopy to distinguish the hydroperoxides from other OH-group containing contaminants when you’re working with a system as complicated as a box of french fries.