Abstract
The task of our investigation was to develop a rapid method to detect both viable and dead mould biomasses in spice paprika powder. We tried to explore the relationship between the mould content of the paprika samples and their near infrared (NIR) spectra. Different methods are available for detecting moulds in food. Most of the current methods have disadvantages. In this work the ergosterol assay was chosen as reference method for determining the mould content in the samples because the ergosterol is a mould specific component and it can be satisfactorily determined. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used for this purpose. For quantitative investigation MLR was used for creating models for determining the mouldiness of a sample (SEC = 6,11, r = 0.89). For qualitative investigation the PQS (Polar Qualification System) was used described by Kaffka and Gyarmati (1991) and the “quality points” of the samples were determined using different spectral ranges. The location of the quality points in the “quality plane” clearly shows the shift of the quality points in the function of the mould content. The NIR technique proved to be very promising as rapid, non-destructive, reagentless method to detect the mould biomass content in paprika powder and there is simple means for monitoring the mycological quality assurance of paprika powder products.
© 1998 NIR Publications
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