Quality differences assessment in canned sardine (Sardina pilchardus) by fluorescence detection

5 páginas, 4 figuras, 2 tablas.-- This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jf970056l

Chilled (0, 2, 6, 10, 13, and 15 days) and frozen (0, 0.5, 2, 4, 8, and 12 months) sardines were used to determine the influence of such storage times of fish over the quality of the final canned product. Traditional determinations of lipid quality (free fatty acids content, thiobarbituric acid index, and polyene index) were studied and compared with the formation of fluorescent compounds expressed as the ratio between fluorescence readings taken at two excitation/emission maxima (393/463 and 327/415 nm). No clear correlations were found between the common measurements of lipid deterioration and the time of storage prior to canning. Satisfactory correlations were found between the fluorescence ratio obtained from the filling medium of cans and the time of storage of the starting material (r = 0.90 and 0.91 in brine- and oil-canned samples, respectively). According to the present results, fluorescence detection of interaction compounds can provide a rapid and sensible method to assess quality differences in the final product as it relates to the quality of the raw material used

We thank the Xunta de Galicia for financial support (Project XUGA 402 01B93).

Peer reviewed