Regional Characterization Study of Fatty Acids and Tocopherol in Organic Milk as a Tool for Potential Geographical Identification

Reliable geographical identification can protect producers of excellent agroproducts, and also provide reliable purchasing information to satisfy consumers. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the regional and monthly variation in fatty acid (FA) and tocopherol (TOC) in organic milk (OM) and dev...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ill-Min Chung, Yun-Ju Kim, Hee-Sung Moon, Chang Kwon, Hee-Youn Chi, Seung-Hyun Kim
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2020-11-01
Series:Foods
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2304-8158/9/12/1743
Description
Summary:Reliable geographical identification can protect producers of excellent agroproducts, and also provide reliable purchasing information to satisfy consumers. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the regional and monthly variation in fatty acid (FA) and tocopherol (TOC) in organic milk (OM) and develop a geographical discriminant model of OM in Korea. In this study, OM had α-TOC and showed a regional or monthly difference of 3–5%. Moreover, C16:0, C18:1 n9 <i>cis</i> + <i>trans</i>, C18:0, and C14:0 were the predominant FAs in OM, and OM mostly had higher ∑UFA, including nutritionally desirable FAs; but lower ∑SFA among four regions or in April and August (<i>p</i> < 0.001). The model prepared using stepwise discriminant analysis showed a classification accuracy of 100% for original and cross-validated sample sets. Our results have characterized regional and monthly nutritional variations of OM, thereby potentially suggesting the applicability of a reliable Korean geographical identification labeling system using nutrient compositional analysis of OM.
ISSN:2304-8158