Species determination - can we detect and quantify meat adulteration?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Species determination - can we detect and quantify meat adulteration?

AU - Ballin, Nicolai Zederkopff

AU - Vogensen, Finn Kvist

AU - Karlsson, Anders H

PY - 2009

Y1 - 2009

N2 - Proper labelling of meat products is important to help fair-trade, and to enable consumers to make informed choices. However, it has been shown that labelling of species, expressed as weight/weight (w/w), on meat product labels was incorrect in more than 20% of cases. Enforcement of labelling regulations requires reliable analytical methods. Analytical methods are often based on protein or DNA measurements, which are not directly comparable to labelled meat expressed as w/w. This review discusses a wide range of analytical methods with focus on their ability to quantify and their limits of detection (LOD). In particular, problems associated with a correlation from quantitative DNA based results to meat content (w/w) are discussed. The hope is to make researchers aware of the problems of expressing DNA results as meat content (w/w) in order to find better alternatives. One alternative is to express DNA results as genome/genome equivalents.

AB - Proper labelling of meat products is important to help fair-trade, and to enable consumers to make informed choices. However, it has been shown that labelling of species, expressed as weight/weight (w/w), on meat product labels was incorrect in more than 20% of cases. Enforcement of labelling regulations requires reliable analytical methods. Analytical methods are often based on protein or DNA measurements, which are not directly comparable to labelled meat expressed as w/w. This review discusses a wide range of analytical methods with focus on their ability to quantify and their limits of detection (LOD). In particular, problems associated with a correlation from quantitative DNA based results to meat content (w/w) are discussed. The hope is to make researchers aware of the problems of expressing DNA results as meat content (w/w) in order to find better alternatives. One alternative is to express DNA results as genome/genome equivalents.

U2 - 10.1016/j.meatsci.2009.06.003

DO - 10.1016/j.meatsci.2009.06.003

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 20416768

SN - 0309-1740

VL - 83

SP - 165

EP - 174

JO - Meat Science

JF - Meat Science

IS - 2

ER -