Discrimination Between Artisanal and Industrial Cassava by Raman Spectroscopy

Raman spectroscopy is a high-resolution photonic technique that can provide, in a few seconds, chemical and structural information on almost any material, organic or inorganic compound, thus allowing its identification. This technique has been used in the food industry to detect adulteration in food products and to characterize new chemical compounds. In this work, we used the Raman technique to elucidate the composition of cassava flour that provides 3.92% of the daily energy for Brazilians. Different samples of flour produced industrially and artisanal (in the flour houses in the interior of the country and sold at open markets) were analyzed. The objective of this work was to discriminate by origin and determine which vibrational modes characterize these samples of artisanal and industrial cassava flour by Raman spectroscopy technique. From artisanal and industrialized cassava flours spectra analysis, it was found that the principal Raman peaks are located between the 300 and 3000 cm⁻¹ bands. This fact leads us to suggest that cassava flour has in its composition complex carbohydrates such as polysaccharides, unsaturated fatty acids and proteins, characteristics founds in plant origin’s food. With the present work we were able to carry out for the first time a artisanal and industrialized cassava flours chemical analysis by the Raman method.