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Fraudulent practices concerning honey are growing fast and involve misrepresentation of origin and adulteration. Simple and feasible methods for honey authentication are needed to ascertain honey compliance and quality. Working on a robust dataset and simultaneously investigating honey traceability and adulterant detection, this study proposed a portable FTNIR fingerprinting approach combined with chemometrics. Multifloral and unifloral honey samples (n = 244) from Spain and Sardinia (Italy) were discriminated by botanical and geographical origin. Qualitative and quantitative methods were developed using linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and partial least squares (PLS) regression to detect adulterated honey with two syrups, consisting of glucose, fructose, and maltose. Botanical and geographical origins were predicted with 90% and 95% accuracy, respectively. LDA models discriminated pure and adulterated honey samples with an accuracy of over 92%, whereas PLS allows for the accurate quantification of over 10% of adulterants in unifloral and 20% in multifloral honey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional Filuferru is an ancient spirit from Sardinia, Italy, which is usually obtained from the distillation of wine or grape marc. In this contribution, the results of the first chemical characterization of a wide number of crafts Filuferru samples has been accomplished in terms of an evaluation of the alcoholic strength, qualitative and quantitative gas-chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis of the volatile composition of the distillate, and its trace element composition by means an inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) method. Both instrumental methods have been validated and applied on 21 craft samples of Filuferru, whereas one sample of commercial distillate has been analyzed for comparison purposes. Alcoholic strength ranged between 41.0 and 62.4% (v/v). Sixty volatile compounds were identified and ten of them have been quantified. Analogies and differences with Grappa (i.e., the Italian distilled spirit closer to Filuferru) have been highlighted in the qualitative and quantitative profile of this matrix. Often meaningful amounts of acetaldehyde, ethyl acetate, dietyl acetal, and acetic acid were measured. Elemental analysis, performed on toxic, non-toxic elements, and oligoelements, 18 in total, revealed a wide variability of concentrations in both analytes and samples. High concentrations of Cu are sometimes evidenced, which are likely caused by losses from the distillation apparatus. The principal components analysis (PCA) allowed the differentiation of the ten volatile compounds quantified in two groups: the former, as described mainly by PC1, constituted by acetic acid, ethyl acetate, dietyl acetal, and acetaldehyde, and the second, described by PC2, constituted by 1-propanol, 2-methyl-1-propanol, the two coeluiting isomers 2-methyl-1-butanol and 3-methyl-1-butanol,1-hexanol, 2-phenylethanol, and 2,3-butanediol. Data obtained may be useful in order to establish a regulation for the production of high-quality traditional Filuferru from Sardinia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The amount of specific trace elements like selenium (Se) may be of health concern for humans if contained in too high (or low) quantities in staple foods like rice. Among the attempts aimed to optimize the Se concentration in rice, only few studies have been focused on the use of irrigation methods other than continuous flooding. Since intermittent irriguous methods, like sprinkler and saturation, have found to be effective in modifying the bioaccumulation of arsenic and cadmium in rice kernels, the main goal of this study is to measure the amount of the total Se contained in grains of 26 rice genotypes cultivated for two consecutive agrarian vintages in the same open field and with the same water, but differently irrigated with continuous flooding, sprinkler or saturation. To do this, an original and validated ICP-MS method has been developed. The validation parameters accounted for a high sensitivity and accuracy. Sprinkler irrigation is able to reduce in the average of 90% the amount of total Se in kernels in comparison to values measured in rice irrigated with continuous flooding. In conclusion, different irrigation techniques and rice genotypes seem to be valuable tools in order to allow in the future the customized modulation of the Se concentration in rice grain according to the needs of the various populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]