Abstract
This study was tried to evaluate possibilities for discriminating the mixture degree of wheat flour from buckwheat products. Buckwheat was milled into four grades of powder, i.e. whole grain flour (WGF), inner layer flour(ILF), middle layer flour(MLF) and outer layer flour(OLF)), and these powders were mixed with wheat flour(WF) to make mixed samples. Ash, protein and fat contents of the buckwheat flours were high in the order of OLF=WGF>MLF>ILF. On the other hand, WF showed a similar content to OLF in ash and protein, and to ILF in fats. Potassium and magnesium contents were higher in all the buckwheat powder than in the wheat flour. Flavonoid contents were higher in order of OLF>WGF=MLF> ILF, but it was not in wheat flour. Although the reliable correlation between mix ratio and components, i.e. mag nesium or ash analyzed were found, it did not seem to reflect sufficiently the expected variations of contents of original material components. Also, compositions of commercial buckwheat products were analyzed to evaluate the mixed ratio of buckwheat flour and wheat flour. The results suggest that the components analyzed in this study as putative marker were not good in determining whether or how much buckwheat products contained wheat flour.