Elsevier

Food Chemistry: X

Volume 13, 30 March 2022, 100266
Food Chemistry: X

Analysis of wheat flour-insect powder mixtures based on their near infrared spectra

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fochx.2022.100266Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Seven edible insect species and their mixtures with wheat flour were analyzed by near infrared spectroscopy.

  • Different species were clearly differentiated as expected.

  • Mixtures were differentiated successfully based on the species.

  • Prediction of insect content showed 0.65% cross-validated error.

  • The proposed methodology is able to identify species and their amounts in white flour mixtures with high accuracy.

Abstract

Insects are gaining more and more space in food and feed sectors, creating an intense scientific interest towards insects as food ingredients. Several papers deal with cereal-based products complemented by insect powder in the past few years. However, adulteration and quality control of such products present some hot topics for researchers, e.g., how can we justify the amounts and/or species of the insects used in the given products? Our paper aims to answer such questions by analysing seven edible insect powders of different species independently. The mixtures with wheat flour were analysed using near infrared spectroscopy and chemometric methods. Not only powders of different species were clearly differentiated, but also mixtures created by different amounts of wheat flour. Prediction of insect content showed 0.65% cross-validated error. The proposed methodology gives an excellent tool for quality control of insect-based cereal food products.

Keywords

Entomophagy
Edible insect
Wheat flour
Near infrared spectroscopy
Quality control

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