Mass Spectrometry in Food Authentication

Abstract

Foodomics has recently emerged as a new discipline that studies food and nutritional products with modern analytical tools, including mass spectrometry (MS), to ensure food quality and safety. Foodomics is currently being used as a powerful tool in food authentication. It has been used to authenticate food items such as cereals, wine, honey, chocolates, and other commercial products. MS is the most suitable technique for authentication of food products because of its precise, accurate, and reproducible analytical power. MS-based techniques are nowadays extensively used for authentication of food and nutritional products. MS-based methods can detect various food components, including nutrients, additives, and toxic contaminants. Due to advancement in separation techniques, ionization and detectors in MS such as liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, gas chromatography mass spectrometry, electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry, surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry, desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, direct analysis in real-time mass spectrometry, extractive electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, and tandem-MS approaches have emerged as the method of choice for authentication of food products. This chapter discusses separation techniques and application of MS to analyze food products.