Evaluation of nutritional parameters in infant formulas and powdered milk by Raman spectroscopy.

It has been made a critical evaluation of the application of near infrared Fourier transform-Raman spectroscopy for the simultaneous determination of the most important nutritional parameters such as energetic value, carbohydrate, protein and fat contents of infant formula and powdered milk samples based on the use of partial least squares (PLS) regression analysis. A highly heterogeneous population of 23 samples, covering a wide range of infant food formula and powdered milk, were obtained from the Spanish market. Raman spectra, obtained by excitation with a Nd:YAG laser at 1064 nm, show no disturbing fluorescence effects; therefore sample spectra can be recorded without any previous preparation step. After correcting the spectra, hierarchical cluster analysis was performed in order to select a representative calibration set and the corresponding validation sample set. Different PLS models and several spectral windows were tested in order to evaluate their prediction capabilities for the validation set. Considering a calibration set comprised of three replicate spectra of 15 samples and a validation data set of eight samples, the procedure developed provided figures of merit which complied with the statutory values declared by the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA).