Conferencia: Matching soil, water and food composition for the authentication of food origin. Learned lessons and challenges for the XXI century.

WUNDERLIN D.A.

Reno, NE

Congreso; SciX; 2014

The Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS)

The authentication of food origin has been intensively studied during last years. Methods used include chemical analysis, geomatics (GPS) and monitoring the audit-trail of transit documents from farm to fork. Geomatics is possible but expensive and many times not useful for foods like cereals. Transit document can be counterfeited. Chemical composition can be used to construct a fingerprint associated to the food. The main problem with this fingerprint is assessing if it is reliable and if it can be linked to the region of production. Many research reports evaluate differences between the same or similar foods from different region by analysing the product itself (multielemental, organic and stable isotope composition). However, much of these reports fail to link the chemical or isotopic composition with the region where foods are produced, namely soil and water composition of these regions. Other less common approach is linking soil, water and food composition by multivariate statistics, considering geological and environmental issues. This last approach enables matching chemical elements present in the soil with those present in food commodities produced in a certain area. Furthermore, adding information on organic metabolites helps to differentiate products from different areas. So far, the simultaneous evaluation of soil, water and foods from an area of interest emerges as a useful tool for the construction of databases or predictive models to assess food provenance in the near future. Results from our recent research will be presented as examples of the usefulness of the proposed approach. Along with the possibility of using this approach, a new challenge is emerging, which is the evaluation of food safety in addition to food provenance. This challenge arises from the current knowledge on bioaccumulation and biomagnification of pollutants throughout the food web, reaching levels toxic to humans. So far, the food science in the XXI century will face the need of enhancing chemical fingerprints with isotopic, biochemical and even genetic information to discriminate between foods produced in safe-clean areas from those produced in polluted environments. The evaluation of markers to differentiate between these two categories deserves the attention of the food industry, government and regulatory agencies.