| No: 06 | June 2007 |
"It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." The adulteration of food products is not a new event. When food became a traded commodity, the potential for fraud became into being. The earliest historical record concerning food refers to issues of food authenticity. However, the means of adulteration have become much more sophisticated in the recent years. Therefore, also authenticity proof has become more challenging for the analysts. The wide range of products deriving from different geographical origins being processed in many different ways makes the analytical work sometimes very difficult. Consumers expect consistent high quality food, at a reasonable price. The food quality is an important factor in the acceptance, attraction and purchase of a product by the public. Regulations require food quality control to prevent adulteration and frauds such as mislabelling (i.e. changing the geographical origin), sugaring or blending of products, addition of harmful ingredients and additives to maintain the high standards expected. There is a strong need for reliable and validated methods to ensure compliance with such regulation and to protect the interests of the consumer. Many analytical techniques (e.g. stable isotope analysis by mass spectrometry or nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared spectroscopy, chromatography, polymerase chain reaction technique for DNA analysis, immunochemical methods) together with statistical data evaluation are available today for authenticity proof of food products. In principle, two strategies can be applied to detect adulteration: a) fundamental (deductive) approach and b) empirical (inductive) approach. If food is misdescribed, not only is the consumer being deceived, but it can also create unfair competition with the honest manufacturer or trader. The description of food refers to the information given as to its name, its ingredients, its origin or processes undergone. In the past, basic foods such as flour, spices and beer were adulterated with cheaper ingredients. Nowadays misdescription can take many forms: Not having the necessary composition for a legal nameIn order to be called 'chocolate', for example, the food must have a certain amount of cocoa solids. Similarly, in order to be called a 'sausage', it must have certain amount of meat in it. Substitution with cheaper ingredients Adding low cost ingredients to a more expensive product, such as diluting olive oil with vegetables oils Extending a food Perhaps with water or other fillers, such as adding water to orange juice, or offal to meat products and not declaring it. Incorrect origin Incorrectly labeling the true origin of the food or ingredients Animal species Misdescribing the meat species in a product or not declaring other meat present Plant variety Adding cheaper varieties to a premium rice such as Basmati Geographical origin or country Giving the incorrect country or floral origin of a honey or region for a wine Incorrect or failure to describe a process or treatment Not declaring if food has been irradiated or previously frozen, or the use of mechanically recovered meat (MRM) Incorrect quantitative declaration Giving the wrong amount of an ingredient e.g. declaring the wrong amount of meat in burger Some Project Examples about Food Authenticity Researches conducted by Food Standards Agency (UK) Authentication of milk and milk products using surface enhanced laser desorption/ionisation Development and validation of methodology for the confirmation of the origin of wild and farmed salmon and other fish Detection of hazelnut oil addition to olive oil The adulteration of olive oil with the cheaper hazelnut oil is a potentially large problem in the EU. Currently there are no analytical methods to quantify the presence of hazelnut oil in olive oil. This is due in part to the similar chemical composition of the major and some minor components found in hazelnut oil and olive oil. This study aims to test and validate both traditional chemical techniques and new isotopic methods for detecting and quantifying hazelnut adulteration. This research project aims to investigate a range of methods to detect the presence of hazelnut oil in olive oil.Some Food Adulterants from FDA's Files
References
|
