Background

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.

Scope and approach

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.

Key findings and conclusions

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.

中文翻译：

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电子自旋共振作为监测新型加工技术对食品特性影响的工具

背景

如今，电子自旋共振（ESR）被广泛用作检测食品系统中自由基的一种强大，无损且非常灵敏的技术。它可用于直接鉴定高反应性氧物种，有机和无机顺磁性物种以及对食品进行潜在毒性筛选。它的应用范围包括调查食品的氧化稳定性和受辐照食品的性能，包括水果和蔬菜，肉和鱼，香料，谷物和油料种子。

范围和方法

这篇综述旨在为食品科学和工业领域的专家提供ESR光谱学的基础知识，食品中存在的典型自由基及其来源，ESR形式以及详细说明使用该技术评估食品的理化和营养性质的方法。讨论了一些示例，这些示例说明了ESR在评估创新和新兴技术（电离辐射，高压，脉冲电场，冷等离子体和超声处理）效果方面的应用。

主要发现和结论

ESR可用于食品中自由基的鉴定/定量，自旋标记血氧测定法，自由基清除率估算，食品稳定性和螯合活性，特别是对于使用创新技术加工的食品，其主要优点是高灵敏性，特异性和所需的样品量少，如今，许多类型的ESR仪器已在市场上销售。但是，由于食品的不同性质，专门研究食品的新型ESR技术和分析方法的发展在未来引起了人们的极大兴趣。