The popularity of spelt (Triticum spelta) is growing, and there is a need for a rapid method to authenticate it, and especially to detect adulteration by common wheat. In this study, an attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) method was developed, and combined with orthogonal partial least square discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA). A validation set of spelt and common wheat provided good discrimination between the two cereals. Also, adulterated samples were prepared as an external validation set, and the developed OPLS-DA model identified the spelt-common wheat mixtures as a separate class highlighting its strong predictive power.
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