Comprehensive Chemical Characterization of the Pistacia vera Fruits through Original NMR Quantification Methods

Abstract

(1) Background: Pistacia vera is a dry fruit spread all over the world, commonly known as pistachio, and is very appreciated as a snack, as a precious ingredient for confectionery industries and also as a blessed touch for gourmet dishes; (2) Methods: The simultaneous NMR profiles concerning the hydrophilic and hydrophobic phases, enabled by a specific throughput over grinded pistachio seeds, led to the comprehensive chemical characterization of these nuts coming from different territories; (3) Results: The customized extraction method is described in detail as well as the employed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments. The chemical quantification takes advantage from the innovative multi-assignment recovered analysis (MARA-NMR) technique able to provide experimentally robust panels for both hydrophobic and hydrophilic chemicals. Beyond the assessed repeatability and the interesting statistical discrimination, this paper adds information about the quantitative and qualitative composition of pistachio as inferred by NMR data. This updated background can pave the way toward the development of wider and wider chemical panels improving the knowledge about the pistachio’s composition. This approach can be easily extended to other matrices.

Keywords

• qNMR
• Pistacia vera
• double-phase extraction
• MARA-NMR
• food authenticity
• geographical discrimination