Food matrix

Eor a food container, the amount of sorption could be estimated in the following way. Eor simple diffusion the concentration in the polymer at the food surface could be estimated with equation 3. This would require a knowledge of the partial pressure of the flavor in the food. This is not always available, but methods exist for estimating this when the food matrix is water-dorninated. The concentration in the polymer at the depth of penetration is zero. Hence the average concentration C is as from equation 9. 

Infant s food Matrix analysed Age (months) Isoflavone level (ng/ml) Genistein Daidzein Equal... 

In the in vitro digestion method, the compound of interest is transferred from the food matrix to a bile salt micelle suspension that simulates the in vivo digestion process. This in vitro digestion procedure was first developed to estimate iron availability from meals and since then has been modified and applied to studying carotenoid bioaccessibility from various food matrices. This approach assesses the bioaccessibility of the compound from a certain meal before it is presented to and taken up by intestinal cells. 

The bioaccessibility of a compound can be defined as the result of complex processes occurring in the lumen of the gut to transfer the compound from a non-digested form into a potentially absorbable form. For carotenoids, these different processes include the disruption of the food matrix, the disruption of molecular linkage, the uptake in lipid droplets, and finally the formation and uptake in micelles. Thus, the bioaccessibility of carotenoids and other lipophilic pigments from foods can be characterized by the efficiency of their incorporation into the micellar fraction in the gut. The fate of a compound from its presence in food to its absorbable form is affected by many factors that must be known in order to understand and predict the efficiency of a compound s bioaccessibility and bioavailability from a certain meal. ... 

Type of food matrix Subcellular location of compound Food processing... 

The release of a compound from the food matrix in which it is incorporated is a determining process for its bioavailability and is largely influenced by the physicochemical characteristics of the compound, the type of food matrix, the subcellular location of the compound in plant tissues, and the food processing. The, food matrix type greatly influences the compound bioaccessibility. 

For carotenoids, the type of matrix varies from relatively simple matrices in which the free carotenoid is dissolved in oil or encapsulated in supplements to more complex matrices in which the carotenoid is within plant foods. It is clear that the efficiency of the process by which the compound becomes more accessible in the gastrointestinal tract is inversely related to the degree of complexity of the food matrix. Carotenoid bioavailability is indeed far greater in oil or from supplements than from foods and usually the pure carotenoid solubilized in oil or in water-soluble beadlets is employed as a reference to calculate the relative bioavailability of the carotenoid from other foods. ... 

Different factors inclnding nntrients, bile salts, pH, and microflora present in the gastrointestinal tract dnring the digestion process can affect the bioaccessibility of a compound (Table 3.2.1). The compoimd of interest is generally consiuned together with other nutrients present in the meal and, once the compound and these nutrients are released from the food matrix during the same period, they may interact in the intestinal liunen. 

Insights into the mechanisms of carotenoid degradation can be followed in model systems that are more easily controlled than foods and the formation of initial, intermediate, and final products can also be more easily monitored. However, extrapolation to foods must be done with caution because simple model systems may not reflect the nature and complexity of a multicomponent food matrix and the interactions that can occur. In addition, even in model systems, one must keep in mind that carotenoid analysis and identification are not easy tasks. 

An alternative for evaluating accuracy is spiking known amounts of standards to a food, as reported in several papers,although percent recoveries of spikes do not truly address the influence of the food matrix complexity on the extraction efficiency. Data evaluation procedures were developed as a manual system to assess the quality of analytical data for carotenoids in foods. ... 

In a recently pnblished example of betaxanthin analyses in a complex food matrix, 19 betaxanthins were assigned in yellow Swiss chard petioles. Mass spectrometric measnrements are even more helpfnl if nnknown betacyanin structures are to be elucidated. While betacyanic plant materials such as red beet and amaranth may still be commercially available for coinjection experiments and comparison with samples under investigation, it may be an easier task to first optimize pigment separation followed by mass spectrometric measurements. 

The current trend in analytical chemistry applied to evaluate food quality and safety leans toward user-friendly miniaturized instruments and laboratory-on-a-chip applications. The techniques applied to direct screening of colorants in a food matrix include chemical microscopy, a spatial representation of chemical information from complex aggregates inside tissue matrices, biosensor-based screening, and molec-ularly imprinted polymer-based methods that serve as chemical alternatives to the use of immunosensors. 

The food matrix including its fiber and lipid content and concentrations of other carotenoids in the diet may influence the extent of absorption of carotenoid compounds. The relative absorption of lutein from a mixed vegetable diet was lower than from a diet containing pure lutein. A mixed preparation of lutein and zeaxanthin did not influence the absorption of P-carotene. 

Vitamins and Other Nutrients in Food Matrices see also Section 6.3. Food matrices are available with values assigned for vitamins, carotenoids, fatty acids, cholesterol, natural toxins, veterinary drugs, and hormone residues. The NIST food matrix SRMs for vitamins include coconut oil (SRM 1563), infant formula (SRM 1846), and baby food composite (SRM 2383) (particularly for carotenoids). Fatty acids and cholesterol are the primary analytes of interest in meat homogenate (SRM 1546) and diet... 

Drawing on this representation, an approach has been described to systematically describe selection of food products to evaluate the applicability of collaboratively studied methods over a range of food matrices (Wolf and Andrews 1995). A food matrix is described by its location in one of the nine sectors in the triangle. Foods falling within the same sector are chemically similar and thus should behave in a similar analytical manner. This same scheme can be used to select food matrices representing each sector for development of a series of RMs representing all foods. 

In general, the major consequences of food thermal processing, either at laboratory or commercial scales, on carotenoids are the transformation of the 5,6-epoxy to the 5,8-furanoid rings, trans- to cis- isomerization and oxidation. In addition, independently of the food matrix or thermal... 

Thus, in contrast to previous in vivo models, this in vitro model provides the possibility of dissociating experimentally two important processes of the intestinal carotenoid absorption cellular uptake and secretion. Under conditions mimicking the postprandial state (TC OA supplementation), differentiated Caco-2 cells were able (1) to take up carotenoids at the apical side and to incorporate them into CM and (2) to secrete them at the basolateral side, associated with CM fractions. In this model, no attempt has yet been made to reproduce the in vivo physiochemical conditions occurring in the intestinal lumen, such as carotenoid release from the food matrix and solubilization into mixed lipid micelles. Carotenoids were delivered to Caco-2 cells in aqueous suspension with Tween 40 (During et al., 2002). Using this cell culture system in conjunction with an in vitro... 

The absorption efficiency of the different carotenoids is variable. For example, (3-cryptoxanthin has been reported to have higher absorption efficiency than a-cryptoxanthin in rats (Breithaupt and others 2007). Carotenoids must be liberated from the food before they can be absorbed by intestinal cells (Faulks and Southon 2005). Mechanical disruption of the food by mastication, ingestion, and mixing leads to carotenoid liberation (Guyton and Hall 2001). The enzymatic and acid-mediated hydrolysis of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins (chemical breaking of the food) also contributes to carotenoids liberation from the food matrix (Faulks and Southon 2005). Once released, carotenoids must be dissolved in oil droplets, which are emulsified with the aqueous components of the chyme. When these oil droplets are mixed with bile in the small intestine, their size is reduced, facilitating the hydrolytic processing of lipids by the pancreatic enzymes (Pasquier and others 1996 Furr and Clark 1997 ... 

Limiting Factors for Absorption Effects of Food Matrix... 

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