State of the art and applications of near infrared spectroscopy in food composition and quality

The food industry has embraced simple, rapid and cost-effective techniques for objectively evaluating and measuring the composition of raw materials, ingredients and foods to assure their quality to the consumer. Spectroscopic methods and techniques based in the visible (VIS), UV, near (NIR) and mid infrared (MIR) range of the electromagnetic spectrum have become an analytical option for the routine analysis of foods. Advantages of using UV-VIS, NIR, MIR and Raman spectroscopy combined with multivariate data analysis to analyse the composition and quality properties of raw materials and foods have been demonstrated by several authors. This chapter aims to highlight and present with recent applications of NIR spectroscopy for the analysis of foods.