Emerging Food Issues

Our food chemistry lab has implemented dispersive solid-phase extraction techniques, which allow for sample extraction and interferent cleanup in fewer steps, using less solvent, to analyze samples more quickly while reducing laboratory costs and waste. Other improvements in food chemical analyses include using mass spectroscopy (MS) to detect targeted compounds. Former screening methods used gas chromatography (GC) coupled with electron capture detection (ECD), nitrogen phosphorus detection (NPD), flame photometric detection (FPD), flame ionization detection (FID), or liquid chromatography (LC) coupled with ultraviolet detection (UV) and/or fluorescence detection. A positive detection by either GC or LC required confirmation using a dissimilar technique to positively report a finding. The use of GC/MS or LC tandem MS (LC/MS/MS) provides detection, identification, and confirmation of the compound in a single run. This allows for more timely reporting of data to clients.