Separating the Wheat From the Chaff
Image credit: Susanne Kuehne.
Pasta is widely consumed around the world, and prices have increased because people have been stockpiling it during the COVID-19 pandemic. Durum wheat, the basic wheat for pasta, is the second most cultivated wheat around the world after common bread wheat, claiming 15–30% higher prices, and therefore an attractive target for food fraud. Out of 150 Argentinian pasta samples that were analyzed with a new method based on Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), in combination with Partial-Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), 112 were found to be altered with common wheat. Argentinian labeling law requires durum wheat pasta to be based on 100% durum wheat.
Resource
- De Girolamo, A., et.al. (June 2020). “Detection of durum wheat pasta adulteration with common wheat by infrared spectroscopy and chemometrics: A case study” LWT. Vol. 127. Elsevier.
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