Lipid composition of gluten-free wafer snack present in the Italian market

Celiac disease, a pathology related to intolerance at gliadin fraction of wheat and the prolamin that leads to small intestine inflammation with malabsorption of some nutrients (such as folic acid, calcium, iron and fat-soluble vitamins), has widely grown in the past few years. An effective treatment is rigorous adherence to a gluten-free diet, so celiac people consume consistent amounts of packaged gluten-free products, such as snacks and biscuits. However, various ingredients are used gluten-free products, such as soybean protein, egg white, gluten-free flour and fat; the latter in fact acts as plasticizer, improving the volume and impacting the rheological characteristics of dough. However, it is important to know the amount and the composition of fat used in gluten-free products, since celiac people could increase the fat consumption due to gluten-free diet. The aim of this work was to investigate the lipid composition of gluten-free wafer snacks present in the Italian market. For this purpose, 8 different brands from diverse price segment and with 2 diverse fillings (hazelnut and cocoa), were sampled. Lipid content and total fatty acid composition were determined. The lipid matter of the gluten-free wafer snack ranged from 22.8% to 38.3%, mainly related to different price segment, and no significant differences were found with respect to the diverse fillings. In general, the main fatty acid was oleic acid (3.7-9.0% of dry matter, which corresponded to 17.3-40.2% of total fatty acids), followed by palmitic acid (4.5-10.6% of dry matter, which corresponded to 23.5-37.7% of total fatty acids), lauric acid (1.2-9.5% of dry matter, which corresponded to 6.7-18.7% of total fatty acids) and linoleic acid (1.0-2.2% of dry matter, which corresponded to 6.5-10.2% of total fatty acids). The main sterols were beta-sitosterol (about 72% of total sterols), followed by campesterol and stigmasterol; on the other hand, traces of gamma-sitosterol, delta5,24-stigmastadienol, delta5,23-stigmastadienol, delta5-avenasterol, cycloartenol and 24-methylencycloartenol were detected.