Food and Beverage Analysis

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The global food, beverage, and agriculture industry caters to the population of the entire world. Even though the food industry does not rely on analytical instrumentation to the same extent as perhaps other industries, the sheer size of the industry results in a considerable market for such instruments.

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The iDQuant? Standards Kit for pesticide analysis of certified reference material (ISP Guide 34, IOS/IEC 17025, and ISO 9001:2008) includes 204 pesticides in 10 mixes at a concentration of 100 ?g/mL. This kit has been designed to eliminate the need to source pesticides individually, and measure each one manually. This allows users to setup, verify, and validate the performance of pesticide screening methods faster.

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With more than 800 pesticides currently in use there is growing concern by government agencies about the effect of pesticide exposure on human health. While analytical techniques like GC or GC–MS have traditionally been used for pesticide analysis, LC–MS-MS has become the technique of choice due to speed, increased sensitivity, and reduced sample preparation. The following describes an LC–MS-MS method for screening of 534 pesticides in food products.

Responding to widespread recalls of potentially harmful phthalate?tainted food and beverages in Asia, AB Sciex has provided food safety investigators with a new method to identify the harmful plasticizer.

A combination of static and dynamic headspace analysis is described for routine profiling of both abundant and trace compounds in alcoholic beverages containing dry extract.

The Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera), an executive agency of the UK Government?s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), has selected Thermo Scientific GC?MS and LC?MS systems for its analysis of food products.

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Iced tea

Green tea is drunk by many for the health benefits of the antioxidant catechins, which are thought to help fight heart disease and other conditions. The stability of these compounds is important for choosing the best storage conditions and determining an accurate shelf life. However, a study has revealed that they may not be as stable as was once thought.

Tackling fish fraud

Fraud in the fisheries sector can range from low-cost catfish sold as expensive sole to cod caught in the North Sea but declared as originating from the Baltic.

The Real Thing?

A process has been developed that uses combinational peptide ligand libraries to determine whether Cola drinks have been flavoured using natural vegetable extracts or only with artificial chemical flavourings.

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The Food Safety Modernization Act, which was recently signed into law, is the country's first major food legislation since 1938, and increases the FDA's authority over the U.S. food supply. These new regulations require that foods, including baby food, be tested for pesticide residues.