Eurofins Enables New Methods to Detect Adulteration of Lemon Juice
Overview
Adulteration to fruit juices, whether by intent or from contamination, has been a long-standing problem in food processing. Fortunately, trade organizations such as AOAC and the International Fruit and Vegetable Juice Association (IFU) have developed several methods to detect added sugars, acids, minerals, and a long list of chemical additives such as oligosaccharides in fruit juices.
Tests to detect cheaper juices such as apple and grape blended into more expensive juices are in place to ensure juice products are labeled properly and sold legally. However, an ongoing problem arises when lime juice is blended with lemon juice. Due to their chemical similarities, this requires new in-depth methods.
This presentation, given at AOAC’s 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting & Exposition, discusses new research being conducted by Eurofins Scientists to find indicators of lemon juice adulteration. Scientists at Eurofins are developing a recommended sample prep and liquid chromatography (LC) analytical method to identify PMF indicators for lime juice in lemon juices using Isotope-Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS). This provides the ability to identify flavone compounds that include several coumarin derivatives such as 7-methoxy, bergapten, and isopimpinellin as markers for lime juice.
New isotopic methods developed by the Eurofins Nutritional Analysis Center will assist food testing laboratories and fruit juice processors in tackling food fraud on an international basis.
Author
Ramin Jahromi of Eurofins Nutritional Analysis Center in Des Moines, IA
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