Foodomics: A new approach in food quality and safety

Abstract

Background.The progress in the analytical methods in food science and technology brought about a novel and modern approach concerning human health and food quality and safety. Foodomics is a recently coined term and is an integration of relevant omics disciplines. The constituent omics approaches have extensively been applied in biology and medical domains so far. Recently, food and nutrition scientists have also been interested in these omics research.Scope and Approach.Foodomics is a powerful tool in determining the food constituents and nutrients at the molecular level. Lately, researches in the food area have been fuelled by using the analytical techniques through different omics disciplines like proteomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, nutrigenomics, metagenomics and transcriptomics. Numerous research papers address the use of different omics technologies separately or in combination not only in analysing the food constituents but also in food authentication and evaluation of food safety and quality. It is evident that using the advanced analytical techniques in omics research has empowered the scientists looking into food and nutrition science at a broad perspective.Key Findings and Conclusions.This review discusses the recent developments in the analytical methodologies used in each “omics” discipline and how foodomics approach elucidates the arguments concerning food quality, food safety, the origin of food, human nutrition and relatedly human well-being.