A non-destructive spoilage detection method of detecting spoilage of a nutritional product having a water activity of at least 0.9 has the steps of: subjecting a nutritional product in a non-metallic sealed container to nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy followed by recording the peak free induction decay value associated with an initial nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the nutritional product. Subsequently the nutritional product is subjected to nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and at least one other peak free induction decay value associated with the nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the nutritional product is recorded. Over time, at least two of the peak free induction decay values are compared from which a determination is made whether spoilage of the nutritional product is indicated. Preferably subjection of the nutritional product to nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy occurs on a regular basis and at approximately the same temperature of the nutritional. Ideally, the nutritional product has been packaged using aseptic processing.

A powdery sample forming apparatus, which is used for measuring a water content of powder and in which all operations from powder supply to powder discharge are automated, includes a vertically elongated housing which has a sample inlet port at an upper portion thereof and a sample discharge port at a lower portion thereof. A porous plate or a screen plate divides the housing into longitudinal compartments and a gate opens and closes a bottom portion of one of the divided compartments. A vertically movable press member in the compartment having the gate presses the sample against the gate. A window is formed in a side wall of the compartment having the gate and can be cleaned with air under pressure or a vacuum.

A sample holder and compactor system (10), for use in an industrial NMR (or like) instrument, wherein particulate non-uniform samples can be loaded and compacted. The system comprises a tubular holder/compactor member (20) with an internal sleeve (26) and a ram (30), all fabricated from materials that are non-interactive with the excitation NMR fields and do not interfere with the sample analysis and provides a repeatable, simple way of handling disparate materials in routine repeatable ways ensuring reliable NMR analyses.

The present invention relates to a process for preparing compositions or slurries containing edible surfactants (generally at low levels) or no surfactants at all using an NMR sensor designed to measure water or solids content of the composition on-line.

A method of preparing dough for bread or fancy cakes can be carried out more quickly, precisely and reliably, dispensing with subjective judgements of the dough during and/or after the mixing, in such a manner that the state of the dough is monitored with a measuring probe and that values for the further addition of measured amounts of a main constituent such as flour or in particular water are determined from measured values which are obtained at quite specific characteristic measuring moments, in order to obtain an optimum dough which has the required properties in a reproducible manner, regardless of the varying capacity of the flour to absorb water. Apparatus designed for this purpose contains a detecting element to pick up the nature of the material being mixed or the dough and an electrical evaluation device which in turn acts on a proportioning device for the addition of a main constituent of the dough, such as water for example, but can also be used to control or regulate the temperature of the added water the speed of rotation of the tools and further machine parameters.