[5-1130-P] Food Safety (5th)

[5-1130-P-18] Key Process Variables Affecting the Formation of Chlormequat Compounds During Baking of Cereal Products

*Adam Ekielski¹ (1. Warsaw University of Life Sciences(Poland))

Keywords:chlormequat formation, baking process, cereals

The aim of this work was to examine the effect of temperature and time chlormequat pesticides formation during the bread baking process. The flour and other dough addition used for the study were of the ecological type and verified by us to be free of any quaternary ammonium pesticides. Plant growth regulators are widely used in agricultural food production, mainly in the production of cereals, where they are used to shorten and strengthen the stem. Among the plant growth regulators, chlormequat is by far the most common. Residues of plant growth regulators must be expected in food products due to their extensive use. Permissible level of chlormequat is regulated at 0,02 mg/kg in citrus fruits up to 0,05 mg/kg in nuts. Chlormequat is not considered to pose any risk to human health so long as the residues are below the legal maximum residue levels. However, there is general concern that they may impair human fertility due to the detrimental effects of chlormequat on certain aspects of animal reproduction. Some reports clearly suggest that chlormequat may have serious adverse effects on animal reproduction, even at doses below the Acceptable Daily Intake for humans. Probably due these reasons, chlormequat is not approved for use in the UK. In previous studies, the possibility of formation of chlormequat compounds in brewing malt has been observed, and current studies have confirmed the possibility of formation of chlormequat compounds in the baking of cereal products. The paper presents the results of investigations of chlormequat content in baking products obtained in different production parameters. There are some published papers about mepiquat formation during food thermal processing. Considering the structural similarity chlormequat and mepiquat (Quarternary ammonium nature) and closer resemblance to methylating agents commonly found, it has been hypothesized with high probable that chlormequat formation can take similiar route. Mepiquat is generated under Maillard conditions via transmethylation reactions involving the nucleophile piperidine (formed by cyclisation of free lysine in the presence of reducing sugars) and a methyl donor (trigonelline, choline, glycine). Nevertheless, there is no obvious clue about the possible formation of chlormequat in such conditions. We have studied the effect of processing parameters (temperature and time, dought humidity etc.) and dough components share (type of flour, malt, dried milk), on the quantity of chlormeqat formed during the baking process. The experiment was prepared by using response surface and PCA (Principal Component Analysis) methods. It was found that the key factor determining the amount of the chloroquat compound produced during baking was temperature, which may suggest that the formation of chloromequat is correlated with Maillard's reactions. In our experiment, chlormequat was detected at temperatures above 165 °C, but when the malt contain in the baking dough was reduced (from 4% to 1%), chlormequat was not observed in bakery products.