NMR for Food Quality and Traceability

Abstract

The application of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to the analysis and quality control of foods has also shown great development in the last few years. The increase of new applications and the attention to this technique by scientists, offi cial control institutions, and food industries can be attributed both to the high specifi city and versatility of the NMR technique and to the improvement of NMR instrument performances and availability. In the last 10 years, research centers and industries purchased a lot of new NMR equipment, thus stimulating new applications, and a similar trend can be expected in the near future. The scientifi c literature on NMR in food science is increasing. In addition to specialized books and a high number of papers published in scientifi c journals, since 1992, every two years in Europe an International Conference on Applications of Magnetic Resonance in Food Science takes place in which scientists worldwide present new applications of the technique in the fi eld of food science and technology (Webb et al. 2001; Belton et al. 2003). The aim of this chapter is not a full review of all NMR applications in food science (over 1000 papers are available in the literature, as well as several books) but to show some examples of recent applications of this versatile and powerful technique. In particular, examples of applications of NMR in the fi elds of food quality (nutritional, sensory, freshness) and traceability (geographic origin, botanical origin, animal species, process technology applied to foods) have been selected to show different NMR approaches to different analytical problems. Before describing selected applications of NMR to different food systems, a brief (very basic) general presentation of NMR spectroscopy—of its principles, instrumentations, and advantages and limits compared with other conventional analytical techniques—will be given.