SPECTROSCOPIC TECHNIQUES COUPLED WITH CHEMOMETRIC TOOLS FOR THE EVALUATION OF LIGHT-INDUCED OXIDATION IN CHEESE

Aim of this study was to evaluate the application of these methods, combined with chemometric strategies, as non-destructive techniques to evaluate the light induced oxidation in cheese. Semi hard cheese (Edam cheese) was cut in slices with 1 cm thickness and wrapped with clear cling polyethylene film. Samples were stored in a refrigerated industrial display cabinet equipped with fluorescent lights. The light-induced oxidation of samples, stored in the light and in the dark, was monitored by UV-Vis (200-780 nm), FT-NIR (12,500-3,900 cm(-1)), FT-IR (4,000-700 cm(-1)) and fluorescence spectroscopy. The overall results have shown that spectroscopic methods are very sensitive to measure the development of light-induced oxidation in cheese products. In particular UV-VIS and fluorescence spectroscopy detected riboflavin decay that appears to be the most light absorbing constituent of cheese.