An Overview on Nondestructive Spectroscopic Techniques for Lipid and Lipid Oxidation Analysis in Fish and Fish Products

Due to the high content of polyunsaturated fatty acids, fish lipids are readily susceptible to oxidation, which leads to serious food deterioration during storage. However, it remains a major challenging task to develop proper and effective assessment of lipid oxidation because the process is complicated and relies on the type of the oxidation agents, lipid substrate, and the environmental factors. This fact, in association with the limitations of traditional methods, which are normally burdensome, time‐consuming, and destructive, highlights the great necessity of developing and spreading the use of convenient, cost‐effective, and noninvasive alternative methods, such as spectroscopic techniques. As spectroscopic techniques have provided interesting and promising results in the area of fish quality and safety inspection, the goal of this review is to give an overview of research advances in the application of various spectroscopic techniques, namely infrared (IR) spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and hyperspectral imaging (HSI), for constituent analysis of fish lipids and for oxidation evaluations. These spectroscopic techniques are described in terms of their basic principles and application advantages. Meanwhile, some perspectives on the current situation and future trends are also presented.