Measurement of Whey Protein in Dietary Supplements and Casein in Cheese Using FT-IR Spectroscopy

Infrared spectroscopy has been identified as a method for development into dairy protein analysis by the cheese industry because of the significant cost advantage compared to traditional methods. We propose to use infrared spectroscopy to efficiently and accurately measure whey protein content in dietary supplements as a complementary method to the more laborious Kjeldahl method. We also propose to extend the use of infrared spectroscopy to evaluate casein content and protein integrity in cheese. The use of infrared spectroscopy offers advantages to the Kjeldahl method in that sample preparation is negligible, data acquisition and analysis is fast and easy