Quinoa is a pseudocereal that is grown mainly in the Andes. It is a functional food supplement and ingredient in the preparation of highly nutritious food. In this paper we evaluate the potential of near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) for the determination of vitamin E and antioxidant capacity in the quinoa as total phenol content (TPC), radical scavenging activity by DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-2-picryl-hydrazyl) and cupric reducing antioxidant capacity (CUPRAC) expressed as gallic acid equivalent (GAE). For recording NIR a fiber optic remote reflectance probe applied directly on the quinoa samples without treatment was used. The regression method used was modified partial least squares (MPLS). The multiple correlation coefficients (RSQ) and the standard prediction error corrected (SEP(C)) were for the vitamin E (0.841 and 1.70 mg 100 g(-1)) and for the antioxidants TPC (0.947 and 0.08 mg GAE g(-1)), DPPH radical (0.952 and 0.23 mg GAE g(-1)) and CUPRAC ( 0.623 and 0.21 mg GAE g(-1)), respectively. The prediction capacity of the model developed measured by the ratio performance deviation (RPD) for vitamin E (2.51), antioxidants TPC (4.33), DPPH radical (4.55) and CUPRAC (1.55) indicated that NIRS with a fiber optic probe provides an alternative for the determination of vitamin E and antioxidant properties of the quinoa, with a lower cost, higher speed and results comparable with the chemical methods.
Keywords: Antioxidant capacity; Near infrared spectroscopy; Quinoa; Vitamin E.
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