Acrylamide in potato chips estimated from ATR mid-IR spectra

The carcinogen acrylamide has been measured in potato chips by ATR mid-IR spectroscopy, giving results that agreed with those from mass spectrometry but without the need for solid-phase extraction. Since it was discovered in foods that are processed at high temperatures, like fries, chips, bread, toast and crispbread, GC/MS and LC/MS have become the principle methods for measuring acrylamide. Now, Luis Rodriguez-Saona and colleagues from Ohio State University and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia have a rapid method that is suitable for high throughput, as they described in Analytical Methods.

The new method is based on ATR mid-IR microspectroscopy and multivariate analysis. The IR bands associated with acrylamide were used in a partial least squares regression analysis to produce predictive models. For regular potato chips and seasoned potato chips, the predicted values from the IR spectra agreed with values determined by LC-tandem-MS. The agreement was poorer, but still acceptable, for mixtures of regular and seasoned chips.

One key advantage of the IR method over the mass spectrometric method is the elimination of the solid-phase extraction step. Simple centrifugation of aqueous extracts of the chips removed any substances that interfered with the IR signals from acrylamide. This helps to give a rapid method that is amenable to high throughput and will be useful in product quality control and risk assessment.