Background: Photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS) is a tool for the rapid and non-destructive identification of materials even without contact. In recent years, there have been several works concerning the applicability of PAS in food analytical measurements. The intention of this work is to identify whether there is a correlation between total carotenoid and the β-carotene content of pumpkin and squash measured by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), spectrophotometry (SP) and PAS.
Methods: ‘Crown prince F1’, ‘Veenas F1’, ‘Atlas F1’ and ‘Apollo F1’ (SAKATA) were used as experimental materials. The samples were measured in a fresh state and in a lyophilised condition with HPLC, SP and PAS.
Results: The results of SP show that total carotene content varies according to the species and variety. Lyophilisation resulted in lower, although varying carotene content compared to the raw form. Typical PA spectra of pumpkins were determined (300–550 nm), normalized to the carbon black powder. At 17 Hz the amplitude and carotene content shows direct proportionality in the range investigated. Photoacoustic (PA) signal and carotenoid content of pumpkin samples gave a linear correlation (R2 = 0.9821).
Conclusions: The measurement of PA spectra gives reliable information about the total carotene content of pumpkin and squash samples. These findings may allow the use of PAS as a fast tool for the carotenoid determination in squashes and give the possibility of instead for the results to be used for the evaluation of squash varieties currently used for industrial processing in functional food development.
Keywords: carotenoid; photoacoustics; pumpkin; squash.