Spectroscopic techniques coupled with chemometric tools for structure and texture determinations in dairy products

Structure conditions both textural and flavour properties of cheeses and dairy products. Until recently, delineating the structure of the food matrices and the interactions between components in dairy products has been impaired by the lack of techniques. More and more evidence shows that front face fluorescence spectroscopy and attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopies may be valuable techniques. These spectroscopic techniques remove methodological locks and allow the structure at molecular level and the dynamics of "real dairy products" to be investigated. Over the last few years, we gave most of our interest to the delineation of the molecular structure of dairy products and to the understanding of the relationships between structure and texture in cheese. The analysis of large spectral collections recorded for dairy products using multivariate analysis techniques such as principal component analysis, factorial discriminant analysis and canonical correlation analysis makes it possible to extract relevant information related to the molecular structure of proteins and fats in semi-hard cheeses, the interactions between dairy product components and the relation between structure and texture of soft and semi-hard cheeses. The presented data show that the texture of a dairy product is a reflection of its structure at the molecular level. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.