Monitoring of headspace volatiles in milk‐cereal‐based liquid infant foods during storage

The effect of storage (time and temperature) on the evolution of pentanal, hexanal, heptanal and pentane as volatile lipid oxidation products in two liquid ready‐to‐eat milk‐cereal‐based infant foods was studied. An SPME‐GC method was used to this effect. Samples were stored for 9 months at 25, 30 and 37 °C and tested eight times during this period. Freshly produced infant foods contained pentanal, hexanal and heptanal (mean values: 10.71, 71.5 and 1.2 µg/kg, respectively), which decreased during the first 3 months of storage, although from the fourth month onwards no significant differences among storage times were found. Aldehyde content was inversely proportional to storage temperature. Pentane content was directly proportional to storage temperature and increased (19.9 µg/kg at zero time) over all months of storage up to 43.1 µg/kg.