Abstract
Nowadays, electron spin resonance (ESR) is widely used as a powerful, non-destructive and very sensitive technique for the detection of free radicals in food systems. It can be applied for the direct identification of highly reactive oxygen species, organic and inorganic paramagnetic species and screening of food for potential toxicity. Its applications cover investigating food oxidative stability and properties of irradiated foods including fruits and vegetables, meats and fishes, spices, cereal grains, and oil seeds.
This review aims at providing specialists in food science and industry with the fundamentals of ESR spectroscopy, typical radicals present in foods and their sources, ESR modalities, and detailed account for the use of the technology for evaluation of the physicochemical and nutritional properties of foods. Examples illustrating ESR applications for the evaluation of the effects of innovative and emerging technologies (ionizing radiation, high pressures, pulsed electric fields, cold plasma and ultrasonication) are discussed.
ESR can be used for the identification/quantification of free radicals in foods, for spin-label oximetry, estimation of free radical scavenging, food stability, and chelating activity, with particular interest for food processed using innovative technologies, with the main advantages of its high sensitivity, specificity, and low amounts of sample needed and nowadays many types of ESR instruments are commercially available. However, due to the different nature of foods, the development of novel ESR techniques and methods of analysis specially designed to study foods is of great interest in the future.
[Display omitted]
•Electron spin resonance (ESR) as a tool to identify/quantify free radicals in foods.•ESR as a novel analytical possibility to evaluate potential food toxicity.•Physicochemical and nutritional properties of food can be accessed by ESR.•ESR can be used to evaluate the effect of novel food processing technologies.•ESR is a robust and non-invasive technology for food analysis.