Recently, scientists from the Research Center for Plants and Human Health, Institute of Urban Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences(IUA, CAAS), systematically and comprehensively reviewed the newest techniques and chemometric methods for wheat authentication. This research has been published in Critical Review in Food Science and Nutrition .

The wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the most important cereal crops and consumed as a staple food around the world. Because of the high preference of the world population for wheat, adulteration of wheat protein is a growing concern for food manufacturers. Provenance evidence of wheat is an important topic addressed in current literatures when dealing with wheat quality and consumer protection. Consumers around the globe are increasingly demanding an assurance that the geographical origin and the content of their food should be complied with the labeling. Identification of the wheat variety is also a major issue addressed in the recent literature. Moreover, increasing demand for organic food emphasizes the need for organic wheat authenticity.

In this paper, the authors collected the related literature mainly based on Web of Science Core Collection, PubMed, Science Direct and Wiley in the last ten years to provide a comprehensive overview of the applications of modern analytical techniques coupled with multivariate data analysis, determine the authenticity, and detect the adulteration of wheat and its related products. Moreover, the widely used techniques for discrimination and adulteration detection of wheat and wheat products are highlighted and discussed. This comprehensive and updated review on wheat authentication can provide useful information and reference to food legislative authorities, related companies, organizations, and consumers.

 Graphic abstract

The research was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Reference resource:https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2021.1942783

By Gan Renyou (ganrenyou@caas.cn)