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Four almond cultivars (Marcona, Guara, Garrigues and Butte) have been classified using attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and gas chromatography (GC) data. The data were obtained by completing the first stages of a thermal oxidative degradation process. The degradation process was monitored by using the variations in the main fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) content determined by GC and to changes in the infrared spectra recorded using the ATR-FTIR technique. In order to classify the almond cultivars, a stepwise linear discriminant analysis was applied to the data. The results indicated that, although the four almond oils evaluated here have a similar fatty acid composition, differences in linoleic acid content may be linked to oxidative stability. Butte cultivar samples had higher linoleic acid content and were more prone to oxidative deterioration.

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Ten inorganic elements (Ca, Cu, Fe, S, K, P, Na, Mn, Mg, and Zn) have been determined in the kernel of 19 almond cultivars grown in the same field and year, but from different origins, by means of inductively coupled plasma (ICP) after a microwave digestion of the samples. Statistical methods have been applied to a batch of 171 samples to find relations among the cultivars. The F ratios obtained by applying ANOVA analysis are all significant, indicating that a classification of the cultivars using these variables is reasonable to pursue. The cluster analysis and the principal component analysis can distinguish the American cultivars Non Pareil, Wawona, and Texas from the remainder of almonds, most of them from the Mediterranean area, while the Titan cultivar, also an American one, shows a great similarity to Atocha, a Spanish almond. Further, linear discriminant analysis is used to identify the inorganic elements that contribute to a higher degree to find differences between the hypothesized groups of almonds obtained from a principal component analysis and cluster analysis. Keywords: Inductively coupled plasma; microwave digestion; multivariate analysis; almonds