Recent advances in assessment of marine lipid oxidation by using fluorescence

Lipid changes during food processing are important because of their impact on the final product quality. Lipid damage detection is limited because of the ability of lipid oxidation products (i.e., hydroperoxides and carbonyl compounds) to produce interaction compounds by reacting with nucleophilic food constituents. Fluorescence quantification at a single excitation/emission maximum of these interaction compounds has been employed in a qualitative way as a complementary tool for food quality assessment. The present work reviews recent research where simultaneous detection at different excitation/emission maxima was employed to assess lipid oxidation and quality changes during fish processing. A fluorescence shift towards a higher wavelength maxima was detected as a result of lipid damage; the shift was calculated as the ratio (δF) between two of the maxima tested (393/463 nm and 327/415 nm) and was investigated along different fish processes (freezing and frozen storage, refrigerated storage, cooking, and canning) and in complementary model systems where the influence of different factors (time and temperature of processing, amine and aldehyde composition and content, formaldehyde presence, and pH value of the medium) was checked. Determination of the δF value provided better results for quality change assessment in fish products than most of the lipid quality indices, in addition to being rapid and sensitive.