Rapid determination of total phenolic content of whole wheat flour using near-infrared spectroscopy and chemometrics.

Phenolics in whole wheat products provide many health benefits. Wheat breeders, producers, and end-users are becoming increasingly interested in wheats with higher total phenolic content (TPC). Whole wheat flour with higher phenolics may have greater marketing value in the future. However, conventional methods determining TPC are costly and labor-intensive, which are not practical for wheat breeders to analyze several thousands of lines within a limited timeframe. We presented a novel application of near-infrared spectroscopy for TPC prediction in whole wheat flour. The optimal regression model demonstrated R2 values of 0.92 and 0.90 for the calibration and validation sets, and a residual prediction deviation value of 3.4. The NIR method avoids the tedious extraction and TPC assay procedures, making it more convenient and cost-effective. Our result also demonstrated that NIR can accurately quantify phenolics even at low concentration (less than 0.2%) in the food matrix such as whole wheat flour.