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This is a chapter about food defense that focuses on “Back to the Basics” with a significant study of risk, vulnerability, and threat. Many key food defense terms are defined in an effort to “level set” on them before looking at historical perspectives, consumer education, and federal government/food and agriculture sector specific plans. Several case studies (the Bagwan Shree Rajneesh attempt in Oregon, 1984; EHEC O104 in Germany, 2011; Horsemeat Scandal in UK, 2013) are explored before outlining the next steps.

Plant food supplements have experienced increasing popularity and constitute an economically very important group of products. There is a dangerous misperception by many consumers that ‘plant-derived’ means ‘natural’ and ‘safe’. However, various problems are associated with botanicals, including regulatory issues, the complexity of products, interactions with prescription drugs, potential contaminations with natural and anthropogenic toxins, and intentional adulteration, for example, with synthetic pharmaceuticals. Tremendous efforts have been made in the control of the quality and authenticity of botanicals using hyphenated techniques or DNA-based methods. This contribution aims to provide a brief overview of the latest developments in botanicals research, covering the relevant literature mainly between 2015 and 2020. Where appropriate, reference is made also to important papers published earlier.

As a widely consumed beverage, coffee tends to be a target for intentional adulteration. This study describes the application of modified quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe (QuEChERS) coupled to liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) for simultaneous screening, identification, and quantification of undeclared phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) inhibitors in instant coffee premixes (ICPs). The mass spectrometer was operated in auto MS/MS acquisition for simultaneous MS and MS/MS experiments. Qualitative establishments from the suspected-target screening and targeted identification processes led to an unambiguous analyte assignment from the protonated molecule ([M+H]+) precursor ion which is subsequently used for quantification of 23 targeted PDE5 inhibitors. The analytical method validation covered specificity, linearity, range, accuracy, limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantification (LOQ), precisions, matrix effect (ME), and extraction recovery (RE). The specificity was established using the optimised chromatographic separation as well as the distinguishable [M+H]+ precursor ion. The linearity of each target analyte was demonstrated with a coefficient of determination (r2) of >0.9960 over the expected range of sample concentrations. The accuracy ranged from 88.1%–119.3% with LOD and LOQ of

Ginseng traditional medicines and food supplements are the globally top selling herbal products. Panax ginseng, Panax quinquefolius and Panax notoginseng are the main commercial ginseng species in herbal medicine. Prices of ginseng products vary widely based on the species, quality, and purity of the used ginseng, and this provides a strong driver for intentional adulteration. Our systematic literature search has reviewed the authenticity results of 507 ginseng-containing commercial herbal products sold in 12 countries scattered across six continents. The analysis of the botanical and chemical identity of all these products shows that 76% are authentic while 24% were reported as adulterated. The number of commercial products as well as the percentage of adulteration varies significantly between continents, being highest in South America (100%) and Australia (75%), and lower in Europe (35%), North America (23%), Asia (21%) and Africa (0%). At a national level, from the five countries for which more than 10 products have been successfully authenticated, the highest percentage of adulterated ginseng products were purchased from Taiwan (49%), followed by Italy (37%), China (21%), and USA (12%), while all products bought in South Korea were reported to be authentic. In most cases, labeled Panax species were substituted with other Panax species, but substitution of ginseng root, the medicinally recommended plant part, with leaves, stems or flowers was also reported. Efficient and practical authentication using biomarkers to distinguish the main ginseng varieties and secondary metabolite spectra for age determination are essential to combat adulteration in the global marketplace.

Food forensic analysis is used to examine and resolve misbehaviors that may comprise adulteration, authenticity, detection of illicit substances, microbial spoilage, and foodborne illness, among others. When motivated by materialistic motives, foodstuff trickery may originate from severe health and financial consequences. This recalls the persistence for the development of reliable, versatile, selective, and sensitivity analytical tools for the identification of intentional adulteration intended to cause widespread harm to public health. The current chapter will focus on forensic attribution profiling of food by liquid chromatography (LC) or ultrahigh performance LC coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) or tandem MS (MS/MS). For this purpose, our research involves the period from 2018 to 2020 and emphasizes on chemical warfare agents (e.g., nerve agents, toxins, and plastic contaminants); food additives (e.g., sweeteners, preservatives, and colorants); and veterinary drugs (e.g., antibiotics, nonsteroidal antiinflammatory, and anthelmintics). Our aim in this chapter is to provide to the reader, the versatility and usefulness of LC–MS(/MS) on forensic food profiling.

Food defense is the effort to protect food from causing harm to the consumer, including security procedures to mitigate intentional acts of adulteration. To assure entry in new markets, food companies need to develop and implement food defense strategies through third-party certification. Although there are some programs designed to assist food business operators in creating effective food defense strategies, this is still not regarded as a priority by food companies. As a first aim of this work, a first-party audit of two meat-producing industries was performed to verify the implementation of food defense requirements. The second purpose of the work was to compare vulnerabilities identified in those two food industries with the ones detected in other previously certified food units in Portugal. For such, a food defense requirements checklist was prepared for the audit and a private certification database was consulted to compare audit results with those from other food business operators certified by at least one international food defense standard. Audit results revealed that both industries were above 50% in overall compliance regarding food defense requirements; still the main vulnerabilities were related to the lack of a food defense plan, the failure to identify critical areas, ineffective warning systems and no training in food defense. Similar vulnerabilities were detected in other certified national food business operators, leading to the conclusion that implementation of food defense requirements seems to be underestimated. As an intervention strategy proposal, food defense training would be of upmost importance to get staff and managers acquainted with the concept. Resumo A defesa alimentar é o esforço para proteger os alimentos de causar danos ao consumidor, incluindo procedimentos para mitigar atos intencionais de adulteração. Para assegurar a entrada em novos mercados, os gestores da indústria de alimentos podem desenvolver e adotar estratégias de defesa alimentar, visando à certificação por referenciais internacionais. Embora existam alguns programas concebidos para ajudar as indústrias alimentares a criar e implementar estratégias eficazes de defesa alimentar, isto ainda não é visto como uma prioridade para as indústrias de alimentos. O primeiro objetivo deste trabalho foi auditar duas indústrias de produtos à base de carne para verificar a implementação de requisitos de defesa alimentar. O segundo objetivo foi comparar as vulnerabilidades detectadas nas duas indústrias auditadas com as de outras indústrias alimentares certificadas. Para isso, foi preparada uma lista de verificação de auditoria aos requisitos de defesa alimentar. A base de dados de um organismo de certificação foi consultada para comparar os resultados de auditoria com aqueles de outras indústrias alimentares certificadas por pelo menos um dos referenciais internacionais que contempla requisitos de defesa alimentar. Os resultados das auditorias revelaram que as principais vulnerabilidades estavam relacionadas à inexistência de um plano de defesa alimentar, a falhas na identificação de áreas críticas, a sistemas de alerta ineficazes e à falta de formação em defesa alimentar. Essas vulnerabilidades foram igualmente detectadas noutras indústrias alimentares certificadas, levando a concluir que a implementação de requisitos de defesa alimentar parece subestimada. Como proposta de intervenção, a formação em defesa alimentar será fundamental para facilitar a compreensão do conceito de defesa alimentar pelo pessoal e por gestores da indústria de alimentos.

Herbal products are marketed and used around the globe for their claimed or expected health benefits, but their increasing demand has resulted in a proportionally increase of their accidental contamination or intentional adulteration, as already confirmed with DNA-based methods. Microscopy is a traditional pharmacopoeial method used for plant identification and we systematically searched for peer-reviewed publications to document its potential and limitations to authenticate herbal medicines and food supplements commercially available on the global market. The overall authenticity of 508 microscopically authenticated herbal products, sold in 13 countries, was 59%, while the rest of 41% were found to be adulterated. This problem was extending over all continents. At the national level, there were conspicuous differences, even between neighboring countries. These microscopically authenticated commercial herbal products confirm that different magnifying instruments can be used to authenticate crude or processed herbal products traded in the global marketplace. The reviewed publications report the successful use of different magnifying instruments, single or in combinations with a second one, with or without a chemical or DNA-based technique. Microscopy is therefore a rapid and cost-efficient method, and can cope with mixtures and impurities. However, it has limited applicability for highly processed samples. Microscopic authentication of commercial herbal products will therefore contribute to raise public awareness for the extent of adulteration and the need to safeguard consumer safety against the challenges of globalization.

The identification of pork in commercially processed meats is one of the most crucial issues in the food industry because of religious food ethics, medical purposes, and intentional adulteration to decrease production cost. This study therefore aimed to develop a method for the detection of pork adulteration in meat products using primers specific for pig mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondrial DNA sequences for pig, cattle, chicken, and sheep were obtained from GenBank and aligned. The 294-bp mitochondrial DNA D-loop region was selected as the pig target DNA sequence and appropriate primers were designed using the MUSCLE program. To evaluate primer sensitivity, pork-beef-chicken mixtures were prepared as follows: i) 0% pork-50% beef-50% chicken, ii) 1% pork-49.5% beef-49.5% chicken, iii) 2% pork-49% beef-49% chicken, iv) 5% pork-47.5% beef-47.5% chicken, v) 10% pork-45% beef-45% chicken, and vi) 100% pork-0% beef-0% chicken. In addition, a total of 35 commercially packaged products, including patties, nuggets, meatballs, and sausages containing processed chicken, beef, or a mixture of various meats, were purchased from commercial markets. The primers developed in our study were able to detect as little as 1% pork in the heat treated pork-beef-chicken mixtures. Of the 35 processed products, three samples were pork positive despite being labeled as beef or chicken only or as a beef-chicken mix. These results indicate that the developed primers could be used to detect pork adulteration in various processed meat products for application in safeguarding religious food ethics, detecting allergens, and preventing food adulteration.

The global level revival of enthusiasm in the alternative system of therapy, especially the renewed trends towards the herbal based indigenous formulations, has landed in the execution of certain mandatory measures. Of several such precautionaries, detection and prevention of intentional adulteration, maintenance of quality control of the herbal drugs assume primary exigence. Botanical determination of the genuineness of the herbal drugs, beyond any doubt, is the primary step before subjecting the drugs for pharmaceutical evaluations. Several botanical techniques are accessible to authenticate the identity of the herbal drugs, and application of crystallomorphic divergence is a simple but effective strategy for checking the original drugs from their adulterants. Calcium Oxalate Crystals are accredited with the phenomeon of pleomorphism and the physical property of birefringence. Added to it, the crystal habits are restricted in distribution among the plants and sometimes, specific to certain Angiosperm taxa. Further, the crystals in plant cells are easy to detect microscopically, especially under polarized light. On these merits, the morphological dimensions of the crystals and their dynamics in relation to different plant groups offer a helping hand in herbal drugs standardization. The present paper highlights the crystallomorphic spectrum and gamut of variation of the crystal scenario among the medicinal plants. The major types of crystal include prismatic, spiny spheroids or the druses, smooth spheroides (polyhedrals), rosettes, styloids, solitary acicular, bundled acicular or raphides and sand or microcrystals. A new crystal type, namely, scalloped crystal has been recognised and added to the list. Citing specific crystal habits form the survey, a protocolic technique of application of crystallography in identification of important medicinal plants and detecting their adulterants is presented. The elite of those medicinal plants drawn from the list of renowned herbals used in ISMO are opted to illustrate the crystal specificity in relation to drug identity.

Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) has elevated commercial value due to its health appeal, desirable characteristics and quantitatively limited production, and thus it has become an object of intentional adulteration. As EVOOs on the market might consist of a blend of olive varieties or sometimes even of a mixture of oils from different botanical species, an array of DNA-fingerprinting methods have been developed to check the varietal composition of the blend. Starting from a comparison between publicly available DNA extraction protocols, we set up a timely, low-cost, reproducible and effective DNA isolation protocol, which allows an adequate amount of DNA to be recovered even from commercial filtered EVOOs. Then, in order to verify the effectiveness of the DNA extraction protocol herein proposed, we applied PCR-based fingerprinting methods starting from the DNA extracted from three EVOO samples of unknown composition. In particular, genomic regions harboring nine simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and eight genotyping-by-sequencing-derived single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers were amplified for authentication and traceability of the three EVOO samples. The whole investigation strategy herein described might favor producers in terms of higher revenues and consumers in terms of price transparency and food safety.

Nowadays, foodborne allergies and illnesses have become a global menace on public health. Product mislabeling, accidental cross-contamination or intentional adulteration with low quality or unsafe ingredients for economic purposes could constitute a serious drawback: thus, safety and quality are of paramount importance in the food industry. Analytical strategies for on-site sensitive detection and screening of food allergens and food contaminants are becoming fundamental, since a huge development is being made in functional foods and new food manufacturing technologies. From the perspective of a quick and accurate analysis, immunosensors represent ideal tools that are able to provide a specific and fast response, since they are portable devices of low-cost and are easy to use. Among the different types of immunosensors, electrochemical immunosensors are widely accepted because of their large applicability such as screening, monitoring or diagnosing. This chapter summarizes a general overview of allergens, the applied nanotechnology and the fundamentals of immunosensors built to be applied in food analysis. The approaches used to develop electrochemical immunosensors for detecting foodborne allergens are emphasized.

Food fraud, being the act of intentional adulteration of food for financial advantage, has vexed the consumers and the food industry throughout history. According to the European Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, fruit juices are included in the top 10 food products that are most at risk of food fraud. Therefore, reliable, efficient, sensitive and cost-effective analytical methodologies need to be developed continuously to guarantee fruit juice quality and safety. This review covers the latest advances in the past ten years concerning the targeted and non-targeted methodologies that have been developed to assure fruit juice authenticity and to preclude adulteration. Emphasis is placed on the use of hyphenated techniques and on the constantly-growing role of MS-based metabolomics in fruit juice quality control area.

Herbal medicinal products gain increasing popularity. The growing demand for herbal medicine along with a lack of regulation render herbal products subject to intentional adulteration. The substitution of costly ingredients with unlabelled plant-based fillers of inferior quality has been widely reported. Such fraudulent practices erode consumer trust, but can also pose serious health risks. In this work, 71 herbal medicinal products were randomly purchased from Greek markets and analysed using ITS2 metabarcoding for species identification. The aim was to investigate possible adulterations and assess the efficacy of metabarcoding in plant-based product authentication. Of the 131 detected species in our analyses, 87 were not listed on the product labels. This indicates a high level of adulteration and/or contamination during processing and distribution. Two toxic species, Chelidonium majus and Nicotiana tabacum, were also detected as major ingredients of two herbal mixtures for medicinal purposes. Furthermore, the detection of wheat in eight samples raises concerns for people with gluten intolerance. This study stresses the need for stricter quality control of herbal products. In addition, to overcome the limitations of metabarcoding and augment the approach we used Bar-HRM for the first time as a verification tool. The combination of metabarcoding with species-specific Bar-HRM analysisenhances the reliability of the results.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is advising consumers to stop using multiple weight-loss products that contain the undeclared drug ingredients e.g. sibutramine, which was removed from the market in 2010 for safety reasons and may present significant risks for those with coronary artery disease and other heart issues. Sibutramine and similar undeclared ingredients in herbal medicines are a real challenge for the public health and safety. In recent years, the need for quality assurance tools to ensure the identity, purity, and quality of botanical material has risen dramatically. HPTLC has emerged as a versatile, high throughput, and cost-effective technology, that is uniquely suited to meet these requirements. Most separation techniques do not allow parallel analysis of numerous samples at the same time and they often face problems in separating complex mixtures of substances. However, visual evaluation of HPTLC plates allows for convenient comparison of many samples side by side, where similarities and differences can clearly be seen. The quality of raw materials is rapidly and easily determined by HPTLC. For the identification of herbal drugs and other naturally derived materials standardized HPTLC is the method of choice and recommended by pharmacopoeias worldwide, furthermore adulterated samples are reliably identified. The main objective of the present study is to check pharmaceutical analogue adulteration of nonprescription and prescription slimming products in the laboratory using chromatographic techniques and to discuss its side effects in the interest of consumers and public health safety. Since intentional adulteration of “natural herbalmedicines” with unknown synthetic drugs or chemicals is a common and dangerous phenomenon of alternative medicine, it is important to modify and validate analytical tools to monitor and evaluate these herbal drugs.

Sudan I, II, III and IV dyes are banned for use as food colorants in the United States and European Union because they are toxic and carcinogenic. These dyes have been illegally used as food additives in products such as chilli spices and palm oil to enhance their red colour. From 2003 to 2005, the European Union made a series of decisions requiring chilli spices and palm oil imported to the European Union to contain analytical reports declaring them free of Sudan I-IV. In order for the USFDA to investigate the adulteration of palm oil and chilli spices with unapproved colour additives in the United States, a method was developed for the extraction and analysis of Sudan dyes in palm oil, and previous methods were validated for Sudan dyes in chilli spices. Both LC-DAD and LC-MS/MS methods were examined for their limitations and effectiveness in identifying adulterated samples. Method validation was performed for both chilli spices and palm oil by spiking samples known to be free of Sudan dyes at concentrations close to the limit of detection. Reproducibility, matrix effects, and selectivity of the method were also investigated. Additionally, for the first time a survey of palm oil and chilli spices was performed in the United States, specifically in the Washington, DC, area. Illegal dyes, primarily Sudan IV, were detected in palm oil at concentrations from 150 to 24 000 ng ml(-1). Low concentrations (< 21 µg kg(-1)) of Sudan dyes were found in 11 out of 57 spices and are most likely a result of cross-contamination during preparation and storage and not intentional adulteration.

At present, nutraceuticals and related products such as dietary supplements defined as concentrated sources of nutrients or other substances with a nutritional or physiological effect are the popular segments of the food industry in great demand worldwide. The term “ nutraceutical ” is derived from a combination of “nutrition” and “pharmaceutical” and describes products that afford health benefits, including the prevention and treatment of diseases. Due to fast expansion in this area, a magnificent number of nutraceuticals and dietary supplements with basic nutritional value and offering health assistance is available in the marketplace. Although nutraceuticals and dietary supplements are often regarded as low risk, a great concern about these products is arising due to the fact that their health claims are sometimes untrustworthy according to various market analyses. The regulations on nutraceuticals or dietary supplements differ in Europe and the United States and the most frequent negative issue with nutraceuticals is intentional adulteration, contamination, and misreporting on the claimed content by the manufacturers, which may cause serious hazards in human health. In this chapter, an updated overview on regulatory issues in connection with adulteration and contamination cases reported in nutraceuticals and dietary supplements will be presented using reported market analyses.