Advances in Edible Oils and Lipids in Food and Nutrition: From Oxidative Stability to Lipidomics and Bioactive Functionality

Edible oils and dietary lipids play critical roles in human nutrition, food quality, and health promotion. Beyond serving as major sources of energy, lipids contribute to membrane structure, cellular signaling, metabolic regulation, and the delivery of bioactive compounds. Their functionality, nutritional value, and sensory characteristics are strongly influenced by oxidative stability and compositional attributes, which ultimately affect both food quality and consumer health.In modern food systems, increasing demand for minimally processed, natural, sustainable, and health-promoting foods has intensified the need to better understand and control lipid degradation processes. Lipid oxidation remains one of the most important challenges affecting the shelf life, safety, sensory quality, and nutritional value of edible oils and lipid-rich foods. These processes are influenced by numerous factors, including raw material characteristics, processing conditions, storage environments, packaging systems, and food formulation strategies.Recent advances in analytical science, particularly lipidomics, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS), chemometrics, and advanced spectroscopic techniques, have substantially improved our ability to characterize lipid composition, oxidation pathways, transformation products, and bioactive lipid species. Furthermore, emerging approaches integrating lipidomics, metabolomics, artificial intelligence, and systems nutrition are providing unprecedented insights into the relationships among lipid structure, functionality, food quality, and health outcomes.At the same time, growing interest in natural antioxidants, functional lipids, plant-based oils, alternative lipid sources, and sustainable preservation technologies has created new opportunities to enhance the stability, functionality, and nutritional quality of edible oils and lipid-containing food systems. Innovations such as active packaging, clean-label formulations, novel processing technologies, and circular bioeconomy approaches are increasingly being explored to mitigate oxidation while preserving sensory and nutritional integrity.This Research Topic aims to provide a comprehensive platform for recent advances in edible oils and lipids research, with particular emphasis on oxidative stability, lipidomics-based characterization, functional and bioactive lipids, and innovative strategies for improving lipid quality and health-promoting properties in food and nutrition systems.We welcome original research articles, reviews, and methodological studies addressing, but not limited to, the following topics:• Edible oils and dietary lipids: composition, quality, authenticity, and oxidative stability;• Lipid oxidation mechanisms and degradation pathways in food systems;• Effects of processing technologies (refining, heating, frying, and emerging processes) on lipid quality and functionality;• Strategies to improve oxidative stability and frying performance of edible oils;• Natural antioxidants and their applications in lipid protection;• Functional and bioactive lipids and their implications for human health and nutrition;• Plant-based oils, alternative lipid sources, and novel fat replacers;• Lipidomics and advanced analytical approaches (GC–MS, LC–MS, spectroscopy, and chemometrics) for lipid profiling and transformation analysis;• Integration of lipidomics with metabolomics, proteomics, and systems biology approaches;• Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and chemometric tools for lipid quality prediction, authentication, and data analysis;• Active packaging and innovative preservation technologies for lipid-rich foods;• Sensory evaluation and consumer perception of lipid oxidation using conventional and emerging approaches (e.g., CATA, hedonic scaling, electronic nose, and electronic tongue);• Interactions between oxidized lipids and nutritional, physiological, and biological outcomes;• Sustainable stabilization strategies and valorization of lipid-rich by-products within circular bioeconomy frameworks;• Clean-label approaches for improving lipid stability and functionality in food systems.By bringing together multidisciplinary contributions from food scientists, nutritionists, analytical chemists, and industry researchers, this Special Issue seeks to advance current knowledge on lipid quality, stability, functionality, and health implications within modern food systems. Topic editors: Taha Mehany, Sameh A. Korma Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/82938/advances-in-edible-oils-and-lipids-in-food-and-nutrition-from-oxidative-stability-to-lipidomics-and-bioactive-functionality