Acrylamide risk in food products: the shortbread case study

Among advanced hypotheses concerning acrylamide formation in cooked food, the Maillard browning
reactions of sugars and amino acids have received much attention as the most likely pathway. Bakery
products such as biscuits represent a class of food in which the effect of ingredients and processing
promote acrylamide formation. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified
acrylamide as ‘‘potential carcinogen to humans’’; therefore, there is an urgent requirement for the
development and validation of sensitive, robust and inexpensive analytical methods to quantify
acrylamide in different food matrices to the mg kg 1 levels. The aims of this research were the set up of
an analytical method to determine acrylamide concentration in shortbread biscuits, and the study of the
technological parameters influencing the acrylamide formation during shortbread processing. Five
technological tests were conducted to produce five different experimental types of shortbread. The
experimental shortbreads were obtained using different concentrations of baking agents (sodium
bicarbonate and ammonium bicarbonate) and applying different cooking temperatures and different
times. A HPLC-DAD reliable and sensitive method to determine acrylamide in shortbread was
achieved. The chromatographic separation was achieved with isocratic analysis in a 15-min run. The
coefficient of determination of the acrylamide standard calibration curve is 0.997; the limit of detection
was 8 mg Kg1, and the limit of quantification was 28 mg Kg1. The recovery test was conducted adding
three different concentrations of acrylamide standard solution to the blank sample. The acrylamide
recovery ranged from 90.5 0.3% to 99.1 1.8%. The results showed that the ammonium bicarbonate
concentration in shortbread, and the high temperature, influenced the acrylamide formation during the
processing highlighting that the final acrylamide concentration is influenced by the processing
parameters.