Smith, Water, proteins, enzymes, lipids, and carbohydrates Franz Ulberth Published online: 21 February 2007 # Springer-Verlag 2007 Book’s topic The nutritional properties of foodstuffs h
Trang 1BOOKS AND SOFTWARE IN REVIEW
R.E Wrolstad, T.E Acree, E.A Decker, M.H Penner,
D.S Reid, S.J Schwartz, C.F Shoemaker, D Smith,
Water, proteins, enzymes, lipids, and carbohydrates
Franz Ulberth
Published online: 21 February 2007
# Springer-Verlag 2007
Book’s topic The nutritional properties of foodstuffs have
always been an attractive field to chemists and have led to
increased social, economic, and academic interest in food
safety and human well-being Principles of analytical
chemistry applied to these fields form a basis for gathering
data regarding the composition of food, the effect of
processing on functional and nutritional aspects, and the
occurrence of undesirable substances in food Analytical
aspects of food chemistry are not usually covered by
traditional text books, for example H.-D Belitz, W Grosch,
P Schieberle: Food Chemistry (3rd edn, 2004) or O.R
Fennema: Food Chemistry (3rd edn, 1996) Many of the
method descriptions found in peer-reviewed journals lack the detail which would enable end-users to implement the methods in their laboratories The Handbook of Food Analytical Chemistry tries to fill this niche by providing detailed instructions and comments for basic and advanced laboratory techniques in food analytical chemistry
Contents The book and its companion title Handbook of Food Analytical Chemistry: Pigments, Colorants, Flavors, Textures, and Bioactive Food Components, is a compilation
of individual units that were originally published in loose-leaf and CD-ROM format (Current Protocol in Food Analytical Chemistry) It is organized on a disciplinary rather than a commodity basis Nine units deal with determination of water including vapour pressure (water activity) measurements, sixteen units deal with proteins (measurement of total protein content, purification and characterization of proteins, functionality of proteins), seventeen units deal with lipids (extraction and composition
of lipids, lipid oxidation and stability, physical properties), and ten units deal with carbohydrates (determination and characterisation of mono and oligosaccharides, and starch and cell wall polysaccharides) Units are contributed by individual authors; all contain, besides description of the experiments and detailed lists of the chemicals and solutions required, a commentary section in which back-ground information, critical conditions, the results expected, time considerations, literature, and key references are given Besides chemical methods of food analysis important physicochemical testing principles for character-izing the functionality of proteins (hydrophobicity, water-retention properties) and the physical properties of lipids (solid fat content, crystal characterisation, emulsion stabil-ity) are included
Anal Bioanal Chem (2007) 387:2603–2604
DOI 10.1007/s00216-007-1138-x
F Ulberth ( *)
European Commission, DG Joint Research Centre,
Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements,
Retieseweg 111,
2440 Geel, Belgium
e-mail: Franz.ULBERTH@ec.europa.eu
Bibliography Handbook of food analytical chemistry– Water, proteins, enzymes, lipids, and carbohydrates R.E Wrolstad, T.E Acree, E.A Decker, M.H Penner, D.S Reid, S.J Schwartz, C.F Shoemaker, D Smith,
P Sporns (Eds.) ISBN: 978-0-471-66378-2 Hardcover, 784 pages, 2005,
£94.50/EUR133.40
Trang 2Comparison with existing literature The content of the
book inevitably overlaps existing collections of methods of
analysis for foodstuffs and feed, which exist either in the
form of handbooks and textbooks or as compilations of
methods issued by professional/trade associations or
regu-latory agencies Examples of the former category are Food
Analysis, S.S Nielsen, (Springer, 3rd edition, 2003) and
Handbook of Food Analysis, 3 Volumes, L.M.L Nollet
(CRC Press, 2nd edition, 2004) Method compilations
issued by AOAC International, the American Oil Chemists’
Society (AOCS), and by national control authorities, for
example the Swiss Food Manual, are examples of the latter
category I see the added-value of Handbook of Food
Analytical Chemistry as its detailed advisory commentary
and the tips and tricks in the“how to” sections
Critical assessment Compiling a compendium of food
analytical chemistry is certainly a gargantuan task given the
breadth and depth of the subject This definitely required
the editors and authors to restrict themselves to certain
topics and to leave others out or mention them only briefly
Such a selection inevitably bears some subjectivity and
personal preference To give an example, I would not have
expected to find a quite extensive introduction to circular
dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy of proteins in this
book, because these topics would seem better placed in biochemistry textbooks I did, however, miss a section on analytical applications of proteins in food chemistry, for example use of enzymatic test kits for determination of sugars, acids, etc., and immunological methods (ELISA procedures), which are nowadays widespread in routine testing laboratories Likewise, the so popular infra-red analyzers, which are extensively used in the dairy, cereal, and meat industries to determine protein, fat, moisture, etc., are not even mentioned
Readership recommendation The book is recommendable
to everyone in need of a compendium explaining in detail the“how to” for a wide variety of basic and some advanced techniques in a food-analysis laboratory I would also use it
as a good source of course material for students, to intro-duce them to principles of chemical analysis of foodstuffs
Summary Handbook of Food Analytical Chemistry– Water, Proteins, Enzymes, Lipids, and Carbohydrates gives a good overview of the principles of analysis of these important components of food Advisory comments and recommen-dations how to carry out the test instructions, which are normally not found in other sources, make the compendium particularly valuable
2604 Anal Bioanal Chem (2007) 387:2603 –2604