Eggspection, organic egg verification tool

The institute for Food safety (RIKILT), part of Wageningen Univeristy and Research centre (Wageningen UR) has developed a method to verify the organic nature of eggs. The fingerprint of the natural caretonoids (carotenes and xanthophyllis) in eggs are used to discriminate between production systems. After extraction and processing the results are subsequently compared by statistical methods

Snelle methoden voor het testen van plantaardige, biologische producten

The talk presented new strategies and challenges for the authentication of organic foods to a non-technical audience. The talk presented the use of chemomentrics as a tool for the simultaneous analysis of a number of compounds which can be detected in foods

Impact of Production Location, Production System, and Variety on the Volatile Organic Compounds Fingerprints and Sensory Characteristics of Tomatoes

Consumers havemore andmore interest inwhere and howtheir foods are produced.However, it is often challenging to discriminate products from different production locations and systems. The objective of this study was to examine fingerprinting of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as an approach for characterization and discrimination of tomatoes by their production location, production system, and variety using Proton Transfer Reaction Mass Spectrometry combined with multivariate statistics. Sensory analysis was complementing the VOC analyses. The study was part of the EU CORE Organic II project AuthenticFood. Tomato sample batches cultivated in two locations in Italy, according to the organic and conventional production system, comprising two varieties, and produced in two consecutive years were examined. Both factors production location and production systemimpacted considerably the VOC fingerprints, but compared to these two factors, minor differences were observed between the two varieties of tomatoes studied. VOC data were successfully used to predict the origin and production systemfor this sample set. Sensory data also primarily indicated the differences between origin and production systems, and several sensory attributes could be predicted from the VOC fingerprints. Therefore, VOC fingerprints reflect production conditions and are promising for substantiation and authentication of special tomato traits

ANALYTICAL AUTHENTICATION OF ORGANIC FOODS

A growing consumers’ awareness of human health’s risks, environmental fragility, and animal welfare has boosted organic production of foods. Due to their high production costs, however, organic products tend to retail at a higher prices than their non-organic counterparts. This premium price exposes organic products to fraud and counterfeiting, which, in addition to administrative controls, call for confirmatory assessments of the organic identity. Authentication of organic products is a complex task, which requires the identification, quantification, and distribution analysis of multiple compounds which are considered discriminators (i.e., fingerprints) between organic and non-organic products. Unlike conventional analytical methods, in fact, identifying, in foods, a single marker of authenticity would be, if even possible, useless. Selective fingerprinting uses state-of-the-art mass spectrometry, and a variety of spectroscopies to determine multiple chemical fingerprints in the organic product; in addition, these techniques produce large numbers of data which enable a statistical verification (for example,by multivariate statistical protocols) of the authenticity of the product. The talk gives an overview of fingerprinting approaches and their application to the authentication of real-life foods, such as eggs, meat, tomatoes, cereals, fruits, and coffee

Anal canal duplication in an 11-year-old-child

Anal canal duplication (ACD) is the least frequent digestive duplication. Symptoms are often absent but tend to increase with age. Recognition is, however, important as almost half of the patients with ACD have concomitant malformations. We present the clinical history of an eleven-year-old girl with ACD followed by a review of symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis based on all the reported cases in English literature

Food Authenticity: Provenancing. A Case Study of Fish

Authentication of food products is of ongoing interest to consumers in developed countries. Recently, a general interest in the sustainability of food productions, from both societal and environmental perspectives, developed and added a new dimension. Fish and fish products are common targets for food adulteration. The most important issue is fish management, e.g., the environmental impact of overfishing. Analytical means would be helpful for verification. The aim of the present study was to evaluate various marker groups for the distinction of European plaice from the North Sea from European plaice from other geographical origins: volatile organic compounds (VOCs), fatty acids (FA), and isotope ratios. VOCs were analyzed using proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS); the FA composition was analyzed using gas chromatography with a flame ionization detector, and carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen; and sulfur isotope ratios were analyzed using isotope ratio mass spectrometry. In a principal component analysis, FA profiling appeared the best option to distinguish European plaice from the North Sea from those originating from other seas