The development of new and effective techniques for the determination of food authenticity significantly increased for the last two decades. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) is the most common thermal analysis technique applied in food research; where the difference between the amount of heat required to increase the temperature of a sample and a reference material as a function of temperature. This differential heat flow enables to measure the thermal behavior of foods such as exothermic (freezing, crystallization, oxidation etc.) and endothermic (melting, denaturation, gelatinization, evaporation) events or heat capacity changes of foods.
Main authenticity testing applications with DSC are focused on oils and fat containing samples. The general approach is based on the identification of unique melting and crystallization characteristics of fatty acids together with minor constituents. When it comes into the oil authenticity most published work deals with olive oil. Discrimination of commercial categories, differentiation of various cultivars and geographical origin and detection of olive oil adulteration with cheaper oils are the main subjects investigated with DSC. Palm, coconut, canola, sesame and sunflower oils are the other vegetable oils that are subjected to DSC studies in order to detect adulteration and geographical origin. Nuts and honey are the other foods where DSC is applied for the determination of country origin and detection of glucose syrup respectively. As a conclusion, DSC is a reliable and suitable tool for screening purposes to reduce time and cost prior to verification with other highly sophisticated confirmatory methods.

There is a concern in the olive oil sector for obtaining objective methods to predict both, the olive oil shelf- life and its preferred date of consumption. Due to the oxidation process, the oil chemical composition varies modifying its organoleptic properties and biological value. Green analytical methods based on molecular spectroscopic techniques have many advantages as tools for evaluating, monitoring and predicting the oxidation level of the oil. The aim of this work is focused on the application of mesh cells- FTIR to get information on the continuous chemical changes produced on virgin olive oils, emulating storage and transport processes.
Mesh cell is a rapid tool designed to monitor chemical changes that occurs as consequence of oxidation at moderate conditions. Pro-oxidant factors were combined using a compartment with an integrated system to control moderate light and temperature conditions. Extra virgin olive oils from different cultivars were stored in mesh cells for a short period, the oil stability was determined by using this accessory, and compared with the oil stability determined with other accelerated methods.
The mesh cell-FTIR method provided the opportunity to store and analyse the samples over time under similar conditions to the real ones. The evolution of the selected Mesh cell-FTIR spectral regions pointed out the formation of hydroperoxides and the subsequent formation of secondary oxidation products, differentiating the oil stability of the samples from a multi-factor perspective. The information obtained with this method can be relevant for optimizing handling of virgin olive oil samples during their shelf life.

Salt is a key component of table olive fermentation and preservation. Driven by the increasing demand for low-sodium table olives, this work aimed at investigating the effect of partial substitution of sodium chloride by other chloride salts on sodium content and the sensory profile of the Spanish-style PDO Prasines Elies Halkidikis. Partial replacement of sodium chloride in Spanish- style PDO product fermentation gave promising results not only for consumer acceptance but also for the microbiological safety of the new product.

The purpose of this paper was to compare the composition (weight % of total identified FA) in saturated (SFA), monounsaturated (MUFA) and polyunsaturated (PUFA) fatty acids from 3 food matrices (sunflower oil, palm oil and lard) by 2 different techniques, GC-MS and NMR.
FAMEs analysis from food samples was performed using a gas chromatograph coupled with a Triple quadrupole mass spectrometer.
NMR spectra were recorded on a Bruker Advance 400 MHz spectrometer, operating at 9.4 Tesla corresponding to the resonance frequency of 400.13 MHz for the ¹H nucleus.
The composition in fatty acids determined by these two techniques was compared and the difference between the mean values determined by GC-MS and NMR was not more than ± 15% for sunflower oil, and lard, and ± 6% for palm oil.

Voltammetry has been considered as an important analytical technique applied to the identification and determination of trace concentrations of many biological molecules including ascorbic acid. In this study, ascorbic acid was determined by square wave voltammetry using carbon paste as working electrode modified by a film of a manganese(II) complex compound. Various factors, such as the effect of pH and some common instrumental parameters on the response characteristics of the modified electrode were investigated. From the calibration graph, the relationship between the peak height and ascorbic acid concentration within modified working electrode was investigated. The equation of the calibration graph was found to be: I = 0.0550 γ_ac + 0.155 with R² = 0.9998, where I is the SWV current and γ_ac is the mass concentration of ascorbic acid. The LOD and LOQ for the developed method were determined to be 1.288 µg/L and 3.903 µg/L, respectively. Several compounds, such as riboflavin and biotin, and ions, such as Fe and Cu, were tested and no one of them seemed to interfere with the analytic signal. The proposed procedure was successfully applied in the determination of ascorbic acid in Rosa canina hips.