37-8

S. SAKHAMURI, Agricultural and Biological engineering, Pennsylvania State University, 109, Agrl. Engg. Building, University Park, University Park, PA 16802 and I. Joseph, 227, Agrl. Engg. Building.

Honey has a wide range of applications in the food industry. It can be processed for direct consumption or be used as an ingredient of various processed food products. Because of its superior nutritional value and unique flavor, natural bee honey has the potential to be adulterated with inferior sweetening commodities such as refined cane sugar and corn syrup. Mid-infrared spectroscopy represents an attractive option for quality screening, because it is rapid, low-cost, and noninvasive. The mid-infrared region provides information on a very large number of analytes, and the absorption bands are sensitive to the physical and chemical states of individual constituents.

This paper describes the first application of fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy in the detection of adulteration in a commercially available honey. Although there are many potential adulterant materials, likely candidates are believed to be glucose, fructose, sucrose, and corn syrup. The potential of FTIR spectroscopy for tackling this type of problem was investigated.

The combination of FTIR spectroscopy with multivariate procedures has been used for predicting the level of adulteration in a set of honey samples that were adulterated with glucose, fructose, sucrose, and corn syrup at different levels. ATR spectra were calibrated with different percentages of glucose, fructose, sucrose, and corn syrup added to the sample of honey. The addition of sugars to genuine honey emulates the adulteration and was expressed as adulteration percent.

The best result in prediction of adulteration was an R² value of 0.964, determined by regression with the partial least squares method.

FTIR-ATR spectroscopy can be used as an analytical tool to measure the adulteration in honey. It can quantitatively and simultaneously detect all compounds in the sample, such as sugars. The method is relatively simple, needing no sample preparation.