Scientists shed new light on food adulteration
5 May 2016
Food researchers in the UK have demonstrated the feasibility of using imaging techniques as an alternative means of testing food authenticity.
Presenting significant challenges to industry, adulteration of food ingredients is generally for financial gain, said the researchers working in the Government Chemist programme.
The programme was established by the UK Department for Business, Innovation & Skills to provide advice to regulators and industry, and carry out research.
Common practises see substitution in the food chain of cheaper ingredients for more expensive versions, or providing false or inaccurate descriptions on the label, the researchers said.
These techniques focus on DNA as the target analyte and, although effective, are time consuming, destructive, and require significant specialist training
Government Chemist
As a result, food regulations now demand that many products are tested to ensure authenticity.
For example, while pasta is typically made from durum wheat, EC regulation allows up to 3% contamination with alternative, and often cheaper species, without further labelling requirements.
“Authentication of pasta is currently performed using molecular biology-based techniques,” the researchers said.
“These techniques focus on DNA as the target analyte and, although effective, are time consuming, destructive, and require significant specialist training.”
This has spurred demand for research to develop non-destructive techniques such as multispectral and hyperspectral imaging.
Using pasta as an example, findings on the feasibility of these techniques have been published in the Food and Nutrition Sciences journal.
Researchers said their findings demonstrated that imaging techniques were able to rapidly distinguish between durum wheat and the adulterant common wheat variety, and assign percentage levels.
“The results outlined in this paper demonstrate the potential for spectral imaging-based adulteration testing of seeds and grains to augment existing standard molecular approaches for food authenticity testing, providing a fast, non-destructive and high throughput approach,” the researchers said.
The Government Chemist programme is funded by the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural affairs (Defra).
