Green analytical chemistry approaches for the sustainable assessment of food quality and origin

Nowadays, improving the sustainability of all the human activities is a priority and, in this context, green chemistry is considered an important tool for achieving this goal 1. The green chemistry principles have been also applied in the field of analytical chemistry, leading to the concept of Green Analytical Chemistry (GAC) 2, which aims at the reduction of environmental and human health impacts related to analytical processes 3. Although poorly evidenced, GAC is not only about reducing wastes but also applying green methodologies 2. The food sector is a relevant field of application of analytical chemistry in which the development of greener methods of analysis is welcome and can significantly contribute to its overall sustainability. The scopes of food analysis can be summarised in the assessment of food quality, origin, and safety. The evaluation of these aspects by standard analytical methods is a demanding task that requires time, polluting solvents, and resources. On the opposite, rapid, environmentally friendly, and nondestructive methods of analysis are available, which are also suitable for on-line or at-line applications. In particular, spectroscopic techniques are naturally green 4, and have proved to be efficient for food control when associated with chemometrics tools 5. Starting from these considerations, this work aims at presenting some recent applications of infrared spectroscopy (both medium and near), eventually coupled with imaging techniques, for food quality and authenticity assessment. Three case studies will be presented, considering i) the discrimination of extra virgin olive oils from olive oils based on their ethyl esters content by FT-IR spectroscopy; ii) the assessment of proximate composition of texturized vegetable proteins (TVP) by NIR spectroscopy coupled with HyperSpectral Imaging (NIR-HSI); iii) the application of NIR spectroscopy to face with the authentication issue of meat, by specifically considering the fat portion. The results from these case studies highlighted that infrared spectroscopy, coupled with suitable chemometric approaches, is a powerful tool whose application could contribute to the development of a greener food-analytical sector.