Detection of Vegetable Oil Adulteration in Pre-Grated Bovine Hard Cheeses via 1H NMR Spectroscopy.

Adulteration of food products is a widespread problem of great concern to society and dairy products are no exception to this. Due to new methods of adulteration being devised in order to circumvent existing detection methods, new detection methods must be developed to counter fraud. Bovine hard cheeses such as Asiago, Parmesan, and Romano are widely sold and consumed in pre-grated form for convenience. Due to being processed products, there is ample opportunity for the introduction of inexpensive adulterants and as such, there is concern regarding the authenticity of these products. An analytical method was developed using a simple organic extraction to verify the authenticity of bovine hard cheese products by examining the lipid profile of these cheeses via proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. In this study, 52 samples of pre-grated hard cheese were analyzed as a market survey and a significant number of these samples were found to be adulterated with vegetable oils. This method is well suited to high throughput analysis of these products and relies on ratiometrics of the lipids in the samples themselves. Genuine cheeses were found to have a very consistent lipid profile from sample to sample, improving the power of this approach to detect vegetable oil adulteration. The method is purely ratiometric with no need for internal or external references, reducing sample preparation time and reducing the potential for the introduction of error.

Delta-8 Tetrahydrocannabinol Product Impurities.

Due to increased concerns regarding unidentified impurities in delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ-8 THC) consumer products, a study using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and mass spectrometry (MS) was conducted to further investigate these products. Ten Δ-8 THC products, including distillates and ready to use vaporizer cartridges, were analyzed. The results yield findings that the tested products contain several impurities in concentrations far beyond what is declared on certificates of analysis for these products. As Δ-8 THC is a synthetic product synthesized from cannabidiol (CBD), there are valid concerns regarding the presence of impurities in these products with unknown effects on the human body. Compounding this problem is apparent inadequate testing of these products by producers and independent laboratories.