Food Safety Evaluation Based on Near Infrared Spectroscopy and Imaging: A Review

Abstract

In recent years, due to the increasing consciousness of food safety and human health, much progress has been made in developing rapid and nondestructive techniques for the evaluation of food hazards, food authentication, and traceability. Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and imaging techniques have gained wide acceptance in many fields because of their advantages over other analytical techniques. Following a brief introduction of NIR spectroscopy and imaging basics, this review mainly focuses on recent NIR spectroscopy and imaging applications for food safety evaluation, including (1) chemical hazards detection; (2) microbiological hazards detection; (3) physical hazards detection; (4) new technology-induced food safety concerns; and (5) food traceability. The review shows NIR spectroscopy and imaging to be effective tools that will play indispensable roles for food safety evaluation. In addition, on-line/real-time applications of these techniques promise to be a huge growth field in the near future.

Keywords:

• Chemical hazards
• microbiological hazards
• physical hazards
• transgenic food
• food traceability
• NIR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are grateful to Ms. Diane Chan of Environmental Microbial and Food Safety Laboratory, ARS, USDA for proofreading the manuscript and for insightful suggestions.

Funding

The authors appreciate the financial support from the National Key Technology R&D Program (2011BAD20B12) and the Natural Science Fund of Zhejiang Province (LQ12C10001).