Machine Learning Approach to Comparing Fatty Acid Profiles of Common Food Products Sold on Romanian Market

Abstract

Food composition issues represent an increasing concern nowadays, in the context of diverse food commodity varieties. The contents and types of fatty acids are a constant preoccupation among consumers because of their reflections of nutrition and health problems. This study aims to find the best tool for the rapid and reliable identification of similarities and differences among several food items from a fatty acid profile perspective. An acknowledged GC-FID method was considered, while, for a better interpretation of the analytical results, machine learning algorithms were used. It was possible to develop a recognition model able to simultaneously differentiate, with an accuracy of 79.3%, nine product types using the bagged tree ensemble model. The low number of samples or some similarities among the classes could be responsible for the wrong assignments that occurred, especially in the biscuit, wafer and instant soup classes. Better accuracies values of 95, 86.1, and 97.8% were obtained when the products were grouped into three categories: (1) sunflower oil, mayonnaise, margarine, and cream cheese; (2) biscuits, cookies, margarine, and wafers; and (3) sunflower oil, chips, and instant soup.