Cereal Chem 69:444-447   |  VIEW ARTICLE

Recovery of Lignin During Nonstarch Polysaccharide Analysis.

S. I. Flint and M. E. Camire. Copyright 1992 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Lignin occurs naturally with nonstarch polysaccharides (NSP) in plants and may possess physiological functions when consumed. Since NSP methodology does not include lignin, the dietary fiber values obtained using this method may be lower than AOAC total dietary fiber values for foods containing lignin. Therefore the residue from NSP analysis of 11 foods was recovered gravimetrically and compared with apparent lignin determined by both Klason and permanganate methods. Whereas the NSP residue value was generally higher than values obtained by these methods, correlation was high (r = 0.86, Klason; r = 0.91, permanganate). Residue recovery from finely ground AACC wheat bran was significantly lower (P less than 0.05) from bran that passed a no. 20 or no. 10 screen. Toasting did not affect residue recovery from whole wheat bread. The recovery of lignin during NSP analysis represents savings in time and reagents over separate analysis for lignin.