Application of Stable Isotope Technique in Food Traceability and Doping Detection

Water and soil nurture people. Similarly, the ratios of stable isotopes in the samples of animals and plants from different regions are different due to different environmental factors (such as climate, soil types, hydrological conditions, etc.). Each isotope provides some information about the environment, which is an environmental fingerprint about its source. This isotope fingerprint information will tell us where the sample came from and how it was produced (country of origin and production method).

Based on the above principles, stable isotopes have a wide range of applications in the identification of adulteration of various foods such as wine, honey, meat, vegetable oil, fruit juice and flavoring, as well as the origin tracing of raw materials. The so-called food traceability is based on the isotope fingerprint information carried by the food, in the absence of background information, to determine the origin of the food. Food adulteration is based on the isotopic information of the food itself to determine its authenticity.