Today, one of the world’s biggest problems is the assurance of food integrity from farm to fork. Economically motivated food adulteration and food authenticity problems are increasing daily with considerable health and economic effects. Early detection and prevention of food integrity-related problems could be provided by the application of effective on-site food analysis technologies. FTIR spectroscopy coupled with chemometrics can be used for the rapid quality control of a wide variety of food products with fast, high-throughput, accurate and nondestructive analysis advantages. In particular, hand-held and portable FTIR instruments have the potential to surveil food quality and food safety in various critical segments of the food supply chain. In this review, we explore the abilities of hand-held and portable FTIR spectrometers combined with multivariate statistics to conduct a quality evaluation of various food products in terms of food adulteration and authenticity issues. An examination of the literature showed that comparable results were obtained based on detection limits, correlation coefficient (R²) values, standard error values and discrimination power by using both portable/hand-held FTIR spectrometers and benchtop FTIR spectrometers. In conclusion, this review highlights the potential usefulness of portable and hand-held FTIR spectrometers combined with chemometrics for maintaining the food quality through the presentation of various applications that may shed light for on-site food control at any point of the food supply chain.

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the maintenance of food quality and food safety on the basis of metabolomic fingerprinting using vibrational spectroscopy combined with multivariate chemometrics. Nontargeted spectroscopy techniques such as FTIR, NIR and Raman can provide fingerprint information for metabolomic constituents in agricultural products, natural products and foods in a high-throughput, cost-effective and rapid way. In the current review, we tried to explain the capabilities of FTIR, NIR and Raman spectroscopy techniques combined with multivariate analysis for metabolic fingerprinting and profiling. Previous contributions highlighted the considerable potential of these analytical techniques for the detection and quantification of key constituents, such as aromatic amino acids, peptides, aromatic acids, carotenoids, alcohols, terpenoids and flavonoids in the food matrices. Additionally, promising results were obtained for the identification and characterization of different microorganism species such as fungus, bacterial strains and yeasts using these techniques combined with supervised and unsupervised pattern recognition techniques. In conclusion, this review summarized the cutting-edge applications of FTIR, NIR and Raman spectroscopy techniques equipped with multivariate statistics for food analysis and foodomics in the context of metabolomic fingerprinting and profiling.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of different drying methods on the drying kinetic, total bioactive content, in-vitro bioaccessibility of bioactive compounds, and color and microstructural properties of pomegranate arils. Drying methods significantly affected all selected parameters of dried pomegranate arils (P<0.05). Freeze-drying (FD) showed higher bioactive compounds, lower shrinkage, and better color quality than those of other samples. Ultrasound-assisted vacuum drying (UAVD) showed lower drying times, lower shrinkage, and higher bioactive compounds than vacuum drying (VD) and hot air drying (HAD). The ABTS, CUPRAC, and DPPH results were 34.53-63.71 μmol TE/g, 29.70-61.60 μmol TE/g and 64.82-93.69% DPPH radical scavenging activity, respectively. Also, the highest values of antioxidant capacity for all methods were obtained from the samples dried with FD followed by UAVD, VD, and HAD. The recovery of TPC in dried and fresh samples changed from 2.58% (fresh pomegranate) to 10.32% (vacuum-dried pomegranate). The recovery of TPC for freeze-dried samples (2.62%) was closest to the fresh ones and VD showed the highest TPC recovery. This study suggested that UAVD and VD should be used as alternative methods to HAD due to higher bioactive compounds retention, better color and surface quality, and higher recovery of bioactive compounds.

This study aimed to characterize twelve vinegar samples produced by the traditional method with the use of whole fruits and without any preservatives in terms of their physicochemical properties, total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), phenolic compound profiles, antioxidant...