Adulteration
Wiley Dictionary of Flavors:
Top
Adulteration
- The criminal offense of adding a non-food grade product to a food-grade product.
- The illegal addition of a synthetic flavor and calling it a natural flavor.
- The illegal and generally unethical practice of adding non-indigenous ingredients to another product, and not declaring the addition. Note: This is especially true with adulteration of essential oils, where the final product is still declared as natural, and should not be under our regulations. Example: The addition of trace amounts of synthetic citral to a field distillation of lemon oil to boost the natural citral content of the oil, and not declaring the citral. Unfortunately, some crop reports available indicate some natural products' available world or regional supply far exceeds the expected source potential. It is suspected that essential oils of this nature are extended by use of clever techniques, like adulteration. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to isolate these instances and prove that this is occurring, especially when the oil or other so-called natural product has passed through many hands, and the original source might be a Third World country whose fields might be difficult to access. One newer development is the analysis by isotopic abundance. Lately some very interesting research has also been done on chiral configuration. There are some problems concerning this method, including cost of analysis and sample size. The best way to avoid overpaying for what should be a legitimate product, but is not, is to know your supplier very well, and do gas chromatographic analyses and organoleptic evaluations from time to time, comparing with other sources, and also to check your gas chromatographic breakdowns with those found in the literature.
See Sophistication, Cut (Cutting), Coupage, Isotopic Analysis (Isotopic Ratio), Carbon 13, Carbon 14, Half-Life, Chirality, Optical Rotation, Synthetic.
Related Videos:
Top
Adulteration
Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:
Copyrights:
Wiley Dictionary of Flavors
Copyright © 2008 by Wiley-Blackwell. Wiley and the Wiley logo are registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries. Used here by license. Read more