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Porter, Kate, Benlloch-Tinoco, Maria and Lodge, John K. (2026) Profiling B-vitamins as quality markers of shelf-life and nutritional status of foods. Applied Food Research (101766). pp. 1-24. ISSN 27725022
Shelf-life of foods is traditionally determined using microbial and organoleptic assessments. However, the nutritional composition of foods, and specifically vitamin composition, remains largely unevaluated and fails to be considered a quality marker of foods, despite being vulnerable to degradation. In this study we profiled B-vitamins (thiamine, riboflavin, nicotinamide and pyridoxine) in a vegetable matrix stored for 5-days under different intrinsic and extrinsic environments. The investigation showed all B-vitamins were significantly unstable (losses between 32.2% - 100%) depending on storage environment (temperature, oxygen levels and pH) and significant changes to B-vitamin content was correlated (e.g. r s = -.927, p < 0.05) with microbial growth. In all storage environments where microbial growth reached spoilage levels (TVC > 107 CFU/g), nicotinamide was the only vitamin that was completely exhausted. Therefore, we have shown that B-vitamins, particularly nicotinamide could be used as an overall indicator of nutritional quality.
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 4.0.
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