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Product origin is of great importance for consumers especially because its association in consumer's perception with food quality, freedom from disease or pollution. Stable isotope ratio analysis is a powerful technique in food authenticity and traceability control which has been introduced within the European wine industry to ensure authenticity of wine provenance and to detect adulteration. Isotopic ratios measurements have also been successfully to other food commodities like: fruit juices, honey and dairy foods. The δ18O and δ2H content in milk water reflects the isotope composition of the ground water drunk by animals. Seasonal effects are also very important: in summer, milk water contains higher δ18O and δ2H values due to the fresh plants that are ate by animals. Relative carbon stable isotope abundances in total milk reflect the isotopic composition of the diet fed to the dairy cows. In this study the hydrogen, oxygen and carbon isotopic composition of 15 milk samples coming from a unit placed in ...

Isotopic Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) is an effective toll to be used for drug product authentication. The isotopic composition could be used to assist in the differentiation between batches of drugs and assist in the identification of counterfeit materials on the market. Only two factors affect the isotopic ratios in pharmaceutical components: the isotopic composition of the raw materials and the synthetic processes performed upon them. Counterfeiting of pharmaceutical drugs threatens consumer confidence in drug products companies' economical well-being. In this preliminary study, the analyzed samples consist in two types of commercially available analgesics, which were purchases from Romanian pharmacies. Differences in δ13C between batches from −29.7 to −31.6% were observed, demonstrating that this method can be used to differentiate among individual drug batches and subsequently identify counterfeits on the market. On the other hand, carbon isotopic ratios differences among producers were recorded, t...

This work presents a preliminary study on the carbon isotope signature and trace metal content investigated on the soil-plant-fruit pulp chain. The samples were collected from two Transylvanian areas namely Alba and Salaj. The average value of the δ13C at the soil surface was around δ13C ≈ −27%o and important differences of the δ13C values between the two studied areas were not observed. Meanwhile, differences between fruit pulp of grape juice and the pulp of pear juice relived a difference of about 1.5%o for δ13C values.

The application of oxygen isotope ratios analysis to wine water according to EU regulation no. 822/97 to determine wine's origin and also, the possible water addition to wines, gained great importance in wines authenticity control. In the natural cycle of water isotopic fractionation, during water evaporation process, the water vapors are depleted in heavy isotopes. On the other hand inside the plants take place an isotope enrichment of heavy stable isotopes of water compared with meteoric water due to photosynthesis and plants transpiration. This process makes possible the detection of exogenous water from wines 18O/16O ratios. Carbon isotopic ratios were used to estimate the supplementary addition of ethanol obtained from C4 plants (sugar cane or corn). This work presents the way in which the isotopic fingerprints (δ13C and δ18O) were used to determine the content of exogenous water from wines and the added supplementary ethanol coming from C4 plants. By using this method, the calculated values obtained for the degree of wine adulteration were in a good agreement with the real exogenous percent of water and ethanol from investigated samples.

Stable isotopes are now increasingly used for the control of the geographical origin or authenticity of food products. The falsification may be more or less sophisticated and its sophistication as well as its costs increases with the improvement of analytical methods. In this study 22 vegetable oils (olive, sunflower, palm, maize) commercialized on Romanian market were investigated by mean of δ13C in bulk oil and the obtained results were compared with those reported in literature in order to check the labeling of these natural products. The obtained results were in the range of the mean values found in the literature for these types of oils, thus providing their accurate labeling.

In the last years, a growing number of research articles detailing the use of natural abundance light stable isotopes variations and trace metal elements concentration as geographic “tracers” to determine the provenance of food have been published. These investigations exploit the systematic global variations of stable hydrogen, oxygen and carbon isotope ratios in (combination) relation with trace metal element concentrations. The trace metal elements content of plants and also their light stable isotopic ratios are mainly related to the geological and pedoclimatic characteristics of the site of growth. The interpretation of such analysis requires an important number of data for authentic natural juices regarding the same seasonal and regional origin, because the isotopic analysis parameters of fruit juices show remarkable variability depending on climatologically factors. In this work was mesured H, C, O stable isotope ratios and the concentrations of 16 elements (P, K, Mg, Na, Ca, Cu, Cr, Ni, Zn, Pb, Co, As, Cd, Mn, Fe and Hg) from 12 single strength juices. The natural variations that appear due to different environmental and climatic conditions are presented and discussed.