This review provides current information on the analytical methods used to identify food adulteration in the six most adulterated food categories: animal origin and seafood, oils and fats, beverages, spices and sweet foods (e.g. honey), grain-based food, and others (organic food and dietary supplements). The analytical techniques (both conventional and emerging) used to identify adulteration in these six food categories involve sensory, physicochemical, DNA-based, chromatographic and spectroscopic methods, and have been combined with chemometrics, making these techniques more convenient and effective for the analysis of a broad variety of food products. Despite recent advances, the need remains for suitably sensitive and widely applicable methodologies that encompass all the various aspects of food adulteration. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.

Structured lipids (SLs) are lipids that have been chemically or enzymatically modified from their natural biosynthetic form. Because SLs are made to possess desired nutritional, physicochemical, or textural properties for various applications in the food industry, many research activities have been aimed at their commercialization. The production of SLs by enzymatic procedures has a great potential in the future market because of the specificity of lipases and phospholipases used as the biocatalysts. The aim of this review is to provide concise information on the recent research trends on the enzymatic synthesis of SLs of commercial interest, such as medium- and long-chain triacylglycerols, human milk fat substitutes, cocoa butter equivalents, trans-free or low-trans plastic fats (such as margarines and shortenings), low-calorie fats/oils, health-beneficial fatty acid-rich fats/oils, mono- or diacylglycerols, and structurally modified phospholipids. This limited review covers 108 research articles published between 2010 and 2014 which were searched in Web of Science.

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Structured lipids (SLs) for formulating trans-free margarines were synthesized by lipase-catalyzed interesterification of the blends of canola oil (CO), palm stearin (PS), and palm kernel oil (PKO) in weight ratios (CO/PS/PKO) of 40:60:0, 40:50:10, 40:40:20, 40:30:30, 50:30:20, and 60:25:15. The atherogenicity was determined using fatty acid profiles. We also determined the physical properties (melting/crystallization profiles, solid fat content, polymorphism, and microstructure) of SLs and the textural properties of margarines made with the SLs. The SLs from the 50:30:20 and 60:25:15 blends had atherogenic indices similar to or lower than those of the commercial trans (CTMF) and similar to the trans-free margarine fats (CTFMF). SLs from the blends with PKO contained a wide range of fatty acids (C6-C20) and had more beta' than beta polymorphs. Margarines made with SLs from 50:30:20 and 60:25:15 blends possessed similar hardness, adhesiveness, or cohesiveness to margarines made with CTMF and CTFMF, respectively. Therefore, CO/PS/PKO-based SLs were suitable for formulating trans-free margarines with low atherogenicity and desirable textural properties.

Lipase-catalyzed acidolysis in hexane to produce structured lipids (SLs) from sesame oil and caprylic acid was optimized by considering both total incorporation (Y1) and acyl migration (Y2). Response surface methodology was applied to model Y1 and Y2, respectively, with three reaction parameters: temperature (X1), reaction time (X2), and substrate molar ratio (X3). Well-fitting models for Y1 and Y2 were established after regression analysis with backward elimination and verified by a chi2 test. All factors investigated positively affected Y1. For Y2, X1 showed the greatest positive effect. However, there was no effect of X3. We predicted the levels of Y2 and acyl incorporation into sn-1,3 positions (Y3) based on Y1. The results showed that over the range of ca. 55 mol % of Y1, Y3 started to decrease, and Y2 increased rapidly, suggesting that Y1 should be kept below ca. 55 mol % to prevent decrease in quality and yield of targeted SLs.