The Compositional , Textural , Color and Structural Characteristics of Cantal cheese made from Raw , Thermized , and Pasteurized milk

The compositional, textural, color and structural properties of the three major categories of Cantal cheese (produced in the France), made from pasteurized, thermized and raw cheese milk, were determined. Also, this paper gives a critical evaluation of the use of fluorescence spectroscopy for measuring the molecular structural changes in Cantal cheese caused by heat-treatment. Significant differences were observed between Cantal cheeses in their compositional characteristics. Heat treatment resulted in significant increases in the levels of pH, reduction in the contents of fat, protein, calcium and phosphorus in the cheese. Proteolysis was significantly higher in the raw Cantal cheeses milk. Heat treatment significantly influenced color, since color values (L*, b* and a*) were high in cheeses made from raw milk than made from thermized or pasteurized milk, while the heat treatment effect was not significant for a* values. Texture attributes of raw and heat-treated milk cheeses were not significantly different. 100% of correct classification was obtained for cheeses by applying FDA to fluorescence spectral data (tryptophan and vitamin A). It is shown that tryptophan emission or vitamin A excitation fluorescence spectra of cheeses may be considered as a characteristic fingerprint which allows the cheese samples to be discriminated, since it were retained information related to molecular structural changes resulting from heat treatment of cheese milk. Thus, it was concluded from this study, fluorescence spectroscopy method can discriminate cheese samples according to heat treatment of cheese milk and combined with multivariate statistical methods were used to as an alternative method without use of chemicals, time-consuming and sample preparation.