Focus on dietary fibers…

Dietary fiber can generally be described as that portion of food which is not digested by gastrointestinal enzymes in the human small intestine. It passes into the large intestine where it is partially or fully fermented. These characteristics of dietary fiber are associated with its numerous health benefits.

CODEX Alimentarius, the joint FAO/WHO Food Standardisation program established in 1963, with the mandate of developing harmonized international food standards to protect the consumers’ health and ensure fair trade practices, finally in 2009 reached consensus upon a definition of dietary fiber after almost 20 years of deliberations.

The Proskee / Lee method

Introduced in 1985. Uses bacterial α-amylase and harsh conditions (pH 8.2, 100oC) for the enzymatic incubation step. This method does not measure all components of dietary fiber as currently defined by CODEX Alimentarius. Most resistant starch and all non-digestible oligosaccharides are not included which results in an underestimation of dietary fiber. LIBIOS offers you the leader market assay kit : K-TDFR.

The McCleary method

It should be noted that the McCleary method (AOAC 2009.01/2011.25) is the only method that correctly measures total dietary fiber as currently defined by CODEX in any types of samples.

LIBIOS offers assay kits developed according to this method with very pure and concentrated enzymes.

An innovative analysis testing kit

The « Rapid Integrated Total Dietary Fiber Assay Kit method » is validated under collaborative study (AOAC Method 2017.16, ICC Standard No. 185) and suitable for the measurement and analysis of total dietary fiber as per CODEX Alimentarius definition. This method is updated to be more consistent with in vivo conditions in the human small intestine, i.e. a 4 h incubation time. Under these conditions more accurate measurement of resistant starch is obtained, including phosphate cross-liked starch (RS4). Use of higher enzyme concentrations ensures that resistant maltodextrins produced from non-resistant starch under the incubation conditions of the integrated total dietary fiber procedure (AOAC Methods 2009.01 and 2011.25) are no longer produced.