Fatty acids, polyphenols and volatiles as predictive biomarkers of cold-pressed oil stability

Cold-pressed vegetable oils are rich in PUFAs and bioactive polyphenols but are highly susceptible to oxidative deterioration. Six cold-pressed oils (black cumin, canola, sunflower, high-oleic sunflower, linseed and hempseed oil) from three Austrian suppliers each were stored under household-relevant conditions over six months and analyzed by GC-FID, LC-MS/MS and SPME-GC–MS. Biomarker identification employed Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO), Random Forest regression (RFR) and correlation analysis. Fatty acid degradation, particularly of linoleic and α-linolenic acid, was the main driver of oxidation, while volatile aldehydes such as hexanal, 2,4-decadienal, and (E)-2-nonenal served as key secondary markers. Polyphenols exhibited pronounced, oil-type-dependent depletion during storage, with phenolic acids generally declining earlier than flavonoids and lignans, supporting their use as early-stage stability markers. This is the first study to systematically identify oil-type-specific deterioration biomarkers using an integrated, machine-learning-based multi-marker approach, demonstrating that oxidative stability in cold-pressed oils is best characterized by multi-markers.