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.