Chemical markers to identify chia, flax and sesame from raw seeds to bakery products.

WUNDERLIN D.A.; BRIGANTE, FEDERICO; LUCINI, AGUSTÍN; PIGNI, N.B.; RIBOTTA, PABLO D.; BARONI M.V

BELFAST

Conferencia; Summit on Global Food Integrity Promotional (ASSET2018); 2018

QUEEN´S UNIVERSITY BELFAST

Chia, sesame and flax seeds are highly appreciated by their outstandingnutritional facts (e.g. reduction ofserum cholesterol, antioxidant properties, etc.). Thus, the development ofmethods to verify the integrity of such seeds as well as processed foodscontaining them is of public interest. We hypothesized that some chemical compounds, like polyphenols, can beused as markers of the integrity of both seeds and foods containing them. Thus,the main goal of this work was to verify if the polyphenol profile could affordsuitable markers to identify chia, sesame and flax seeds, verifying if such markersremain stable in a baked food (sweet cookies).The polyphenol profile was assessed using HPLC-ESI-qTOF (HRMS), finding 29compounds in chia seeds (mainly hydroxycinnamic acids and flavonols), 28 insesame (most of them lignans), and 10 in flax (mostly flavonoids). As it isexpected, the number of polyphenols decreased in baked cookies, affording 11 compoundsin chia cookies, 7 in sesame cookies and 2 in flax cookies. When cookies wereprepared using a mix of three seeds (equal parts), we found 5 hydroxycinnamicacids characteristics from chia, 7 lignans present in sesame seeds and 2flavonoids typical from flax.Thus, each seed showed aunique polyphenol profile, helping with the identification of frauds. Althoughsome polyphenols were lost during the baking process, remainder compounds were usefulto identify the presence of seeds in baked cookies, even when containing a mixof seeds. Acknowledgement:This study was supportedby FOODINTEGRITY grant FP7-KBBE-2013-7-613688.