The Histamine -poisoning It is produced by the consumption of certain foods with large quantities histamineThis fundamentally occurs in fishing products of fish species associated with a high histidine content such as tuna, mackerel, beautiful, sardine or anchovies.
You can also Train histamine in fermented and/or adult products Such as cheese, wine or beer, among other things, but poisoning for these foods is less common than that of the aforementioned fish.
Fighting histamine in tuna
A research team of the Andalusian Institute for Agricultural Research and Training, Food and Ecological Production (IFAPA) from the center of Alameda del Obispo (Córdoba), in collaboration with the Agricultural Walloon Research Center (CRA-W, Belgium), developed A quick method to detect and quantify histamine using middle infrared technology. This allergen, which can be present in fish such as tuna, can be harmful based on their concentration and sensitivity of the person who consumes it.
The appearance of this connection is related to poor fish retention, inappropriate hygiene in manipulation and other issues that speed up the microbial activity and breakdown of their tissues. Histamine can be a risk for the consumer in large quantitiesDepending on its sensitivity.
According to IFAPA experts who are responsible for this study, which was funded by the European Rural Development Fund (Feder) of the European Union and IFAPA funds and has the support of the Junta de Andalucía, There are no other fast methods that can quantify this type of connection directly in fish.
Therefore, The proposal could serve companies and agents who control the quality of fishing products to quickly identify fishing parties with dangerous histamine levels for human consumption. In addition, The developed technology can be adjusted for other foods where these types of connections are also a relevant problem.
Traditional, this kind of Food analysis is performed with a common analytical technique What the collection of a sample, its transport to the laboratory and its submission entails, to a series of procedures, such as the pumping stations or extraction of the interest supply and their subsequent chemical analysis, to identify and quantify them.
«The process What we propose does not require that many steps or destroy the sample. Simply, the piece would be placed and the technology in question would be applied. It would be a process that is comparable to passing on the purchase via the Supermarket Fund, ”he explains to the Discover Foundation, an agency that depends on the Ministry of Research and Innovation, the most important researcher of IFAPA José Manuel Moreno, responsible for the work.
How to ‘teach’ the algorithm?
As explained in the article ‘Fast screening of tuna samples for food safety problems with regard to histamine content using Fourier-Transform Mid-Infrared (FT-MIR) and Chemometrics’ published in Journal of Food Engineering, to develop this fast method, The experts developed a mathematical algorithm with the spectra obtained by means.
To ‘force’ these concentrations, experts served in different times and preservation temperatures to increase the variability of composite data in tuna samples. They then analyzed them through instruments related to the average infrared to ‘teach’ the algorithm to predict the presence of histamine and their quantification.
Moreover, experts have gone one step further and have developed discriminatory models, that is, The system not only identifies and quantifies histamine, but automatically indicates whether its concentration is permitted by current legislationThe European or American (FDA) With 95% effectiveness.
«Other benefits presented by using these instruments with the system that we propose is that it is on the one hand can use both in the laboratory and in portable versionAnd that on the other hand, different pieces can be analyzed without destroying them, “says IFAPA researcher Mónica Sánchez Parra, co -author of the study.
The next goal of the group of the Agro industry area and food quality of the IFAPA of the Bishop’s Alameda Center is to move these algorithms to ever simple analysis instrumentsSo that the operators they use can use them at any time in the food management and transformation process.