Changes in the Chemical Composition of Reduced Cooked Musts during the Heating Process MARINA COCCHI, † ROBERTO CONSONNI, ‡ CATERINA DURANTE, † MARGHERITA GRANDI, † SIMONA MANZINI, † ANDREA MARCHETTI,* ,† AND SIMONA SIGHINOLFI † Dipartimento di Chimica, Universita` di Modena e Reggio Emilia, via Campi 183, 41100 Modena, Italia, and Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per lo Studio delle Macromolecole, Via Bassini, 15, 20133 Milano, Italia Cooked must is the starting raw material in Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena (ABTM) production, and the cooking process is a crucial step to ensure quality and safety standards. In particular, the furfural content has to be strictly monitored. In this study, we followed, directly at the production plant, nine cooking processes, differing for grape type and process conditions in order to monitor the actual variability in cooked must reduction. 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) and furfural contents were determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) technique and glucose, fructose, and tartaric and malic acids by gas chromatography (GC) technique. Furthermore, some bulk properties, such as the water content, refractive index, density, and total acidity, were also measured. The obtained results show that the product undergoes, in the worse operating conditions, remarkable degradation, leading to extremely high levels of furfurals (5-HMF and furfural), corre- sponding to a water content lower than 40%. On the basis of these results, a first draft of an optimal heating protocol may be suggested in order to guarantee the safety and quality of the final product. KEYWORDS: Cooked must; 5-HMF; furfural; glucose; fructose; organic acids INTRODUCTION Quality and safety assurance are necessary requisites for foodstuff production. In particular, recently health emergencies have also made the consumers aware of the utmost importance of having declared information about the origin and processing of foods. The European Union has recently introduced regula- tions to guarantee and protect against frauds the traditional food production by codifying the qualitative characteristics relative to typical foodstuff products, together with their transformation processes. In other words, it has introduced a system of labeling in order to simply and immediately reassume the peculiarities of the labeled food. Although the denomination and declared characteristics of the food are strictly related, on the contrary there is no absolute and objective equivalence between quality and safety of the product. Institutional actions aimed at improving foodstuff safety and quality have never been stopped, but the safety policy has been recently reviewed, as a consequence, for example, of the panic generated in the 90s around the so-called mad cow syndrome, or food contaminated by dioxin, or adulterated wines and olive oils. Even if zero risk is not a possible objective, the European Union tries to contain it by adopting modern norms based on advanced scientific tools. Control systems to guarantee foodstuff security are in action in all countries belonging to the EU and have to comply community rules, but at the same time leave room for traditional food products and local specialties, allowing for some diversity. Substantially, the EU is an active promoter/ committee of diversity and quality, it protects typical and traditional products from treacherous copies, and promotes biological agriculture. The aim is not to limit innovation or to homogenize food products available on the European market; instead, it is to fix fundamental norms of safety both on communitarian (1) and international (2) contexts in order to develop and implement quality and excellence, and at the same time guarantee a high degree of food safety while maintaining the peculiarities of each food production. Among the different issues with regard to foods transformation processes, food safety, and hygiene, the problem of furfural formation is nowadays one of the main topics of interest for many researchers (3–10), foods safety authorities, and international organizations around the world, such as EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) (11, 12), FDA (Food and Drug Administration) (13), and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) (2). Furfurals are organic compounds with high volatility and lipophilicity, used in various chemical-manufac- turing industries. Furfural and 5-HMF can be formed in foods that undergo heat treatment including home cooking. The * Corresponding author. Tel: 0039-059-2055028. Fax: 0039-059- 373543. E-mail: andrea.marchetti@unimore.it. † Universita` di Modena e Reggio Emilia. ‡ Istituto per lo Studio delle Macromolecole. J. Agric. Food Chem. 2008, 56, 6397–6407 6397 10.1021/jf800353a CCC: $40.75  2008 American Chemical Society Published on Web 07/04/2008