Authenticity of Complex Foods: A Targeted Metabolomics Study of Authenticity Markers of Chía, Flax and Sesame Seeds in Bakery Products.

WUNDERLIN, D.A.; BRIGANTE, FEDERICO IVÁN; LUCINI MAS, AGUSTÍN; PIGNI, NATALIA BELÉN; RIBOTTA, PABLO D.; BARONI, MARÍA VERÓNICA

Porto

Conferencia; XXº EuroFoodChem Conference; 2019

European Society of Chemistry - Section Food Chemistry

Food fraud is committed with increasing frequency in the food industry and the need of tools to detect it, is a current concern for producers. [1] Chia, flax and sesame are mainly known by their oils, but also they are rich in antioxidant compounds (Polyphenols). These molecules prevent cell aging and the risk of having some diseases such as diabetes, cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. [2] Because of these positive effects, it is important to verify their presence in food, but there is a lack of knowledge regarding authenticity of these seeds. This creates the need to differentiate them through the determination of biomarkers.The aim of this work was to generate a method to determine the presence of chia, flax and sesame seeds in bakery products using polyphenols as markers. Then, the markers found in seeds were searched in cookies made at our research facility [3] to determine which compounds resisted the processing. After that, to evaluate the usefulness of the methodology, markers found in our cookies were searched in different commercial bakery products containing the seeds (sweet cookies, crackers, bread, puff pastry dough and breadsticks).44 polyphenols were tentatively identified and quantified in the seeds by HPLC-ESI-qTOF (MS/MS) in negative mode. [4] Multivariate statistical methods were performed and 12 compounds were proposed as novel markers. Rosmarinic acid, sesaminol dihexoside and eriodictyol hexoside were proposed for chia, sesame and flax seeds respectively, among others. All of these compounds were found in cookies with seeds added at different percentages, meaning that these compounds resisted processing and they are able to be used as markers of the seeds in complex foods. These markers were also evaluated in commercial cookies, added with different types and percentages of seeds. We found five of the markers that were proposed in our method, and certify the presence of the seeds (what was declared in the labels).In conclusion we were able to develop a targeted metabolomic method suitable for the determination of the presence of chia, sesame and flax seeds in bakery products. Acknowledgments: This work was mainly supported by European FoodIntegrity Integrated Project (VI FP, Contract 006942); additional funding from ANPCYT (PICT-2015-2817), CONICET PIP2015-11220150100684; SECyT National University of Córdoba are acknowledged.