HRS4R Seal
Mentoring for Euriclea research
Writing / Irene Vega
Nowadays, innovation in the food industry is closely linked to the demands and needs of consumers. An example of this is the growing and exponential development of gluten-free products over the last decade, caused mainly by the greater awareness of the prevalence of diseases related to the assimilation of gluten. In addition, the production of whole grain foods has increased due to their excellent contribution of dietary fiber and antioxidant compounds, which help prevent the appearance of different chronic diseases.
As a result, it is becoming more common to find bakery products on the market made with flours other than wheat, such as corn, buckwheat, teff, among others, which are enriched with chia, poppy or flax seeds and with aromatic herbs such as oregano, rosemary, basil, among others.
However, the addition of these ingredients can also introduce undesirable compounds into these products, such as natural toxins of plant origin, including certain types of alkaloids. Among these toxins, the most notable are tropane, pyrrolizidine and opiate, which have been detected mainly in gluten-free cereals, aromatic herbs and poppy seeds, respectively. The consumption of these alkaloids can lead to acute poisoning, serious disorders such as the appearance of chronic diseases or even death.
El Consolidated Research Group in Analytical Chemistry Applied to Environment, Food and Drugs (GQAA-MAF) has developed a method that allows 29 alkaloids to be analysed simultaneously in different bakery products for regular consumption, such as breadsticks, sliced bread, toast and biscuits. “This method represents a step forward for food safety control, since until now there was no analytical strategy that allowed the simultaneous determination of these three groups of toxins in food, as well as representing a significant improvement in terms of reducing analysis times and waste generation,” explains Dr Isabel Sierra Alonso, coordinator of the GQAA-MAF group.
This laboratory protocol has been applied to 15 commercial products and the results confirm that it is possible to find the different types of alkaloids in this type of food. “In some of the samples analysed, the presence of several of these alkaloids was detected above the limits currently established by regulation, including high levels of alkaloids that are not currently regulated, such as thebaine,” stresses Dr. Sierra Alonso. “This highlights the importance of jointly controlling the presence of these harmful toxins in food in order to guarantee food safety, thus advancing towards achieving SDG 2 Zero Hunger,” adds the researcher.
This work has been carried out within the framework of the EVALKALIM-II project, funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the State Research Agency, and the PROCESALK project of the Call for Research Promotion Projects for Young Doctors of the URJC. In addition, it has recently been published in the journal Food Chemistry.
Very stable toxins
Recently, a new European regulation has been published that establishes the maximum permitted limits of these alkaloids in different food products (Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/915 of 25 April 2023). It is therefore essential to develop advanced analytical methods that allow the presence of these toxins in food to be controlled in order to guarantee the safety of the products that are marketed and protect the health of consumers.
The GQAA-MAF research team has evaluated the degradation of these toxins during the production and baking process of gluten-free poppy seed crackers. The results did not show a significant reduction of tropane alkaloids or opiates that were naturally found in the raw materials, which shows that these are very stable compounds that can remain in foods even after intense heat treatments. These results have highlighted the need to control these natural toxins in processed foods and to legislate their presence in them. The results of this research have recently been published in the journal LWT – Food Science and Technology.
