Resumo: |
Conventional chemical analysis techniques are expensive, time consuming, and often destructive. The non-invasive Near Infrared (NIR) technology was introduced over the last decades for wide-scale, inexpensive chemical analysis of food and crop seed composition (see Williams and Norris, 1987; Wilcox and Cavins, 1995; Buning and Diller, 2000 for reviews of the NIR technique development stage prior to 1998, when Diode Arrays were introduced to NIR). NIR spectroscopic measurements obey Lambert and Beer’s law, and quantitative measurements can be successfully made with high speed and ease of operation. NIR has been used in a great variety of food applications. General applications of products analyzed come from all sectors of the food industry including meats, grains, and dairy products (Shadow, 1998).
Novel NIR calibrations for rapid, reliable and accurate composition analysis of a variety of several soy based foods and bulk soybean seeds were developed and validated in a six-year collaborative project with a large number of different samples (N >~12, 000). The availability of such calibrations is important for establishing NIR as a secondary method for composition analysis of foods and soybeans both in applications and fundamental research.
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