Argentina is a major producer of quality honey; 90% of the honey produced in Argentina is acquired by the United States and the European Union. The globalization of the world market makes the authentication and characterization of geographical and botanical origins of honey an important issue.
Quality schemes, such as Protected Designation of Origin and Protected Geographical Indication, protect the identity and quality of a product from certain region, in order to prevent fraud and illicit practices, and give it an added-value. These schemes are linked to the characteristics of the production systems, geographical origin, and cultural and historical practices. In particular, for honeys, sensorial, pollen and physicochemical characteristics depend largely on the botanical and geographical origin, and reflect regional aspects of beekeeping management.
Honey is traditionally characterized by performing the analysis of physicochemical parameters, melissopalynological and sensory analyses; which are tedious, time-consuming, use considerable amounts of reagents, and requires skilled personnel with extensive experience in pollen analysis and honey tastings. To overcome these drawbacks, vibrational spectroscopies are considered powerful alternatives due to their simplicity, speed, cost-effective and non-destructive character. MIR, NIR and/or Raman along with chemometrics are one of the strategies proposed for discrimination of the botanical and/or geographical origin of honeys.
The objective of the present work was to develop analytical tools for the characterization of Argentinean honeys: Samples from three production regions from four harvests (2013-2016) were analysed by vibrational spectroscopies and pattern recognition techniques to develop classification models to distinguish honeys according to their geographical origin.

In the last few years, there has been a strong, renewed attention toward hemp (Cannabis sativa) as an alternative crop to produce food ingredients endowed with health-promoting properties. Similarly, there is a strong interest in the introduction of non-conventional lipid sources with beneficial effects, especially for the prevention of metabolic disorders and cardiovascular diseases.
More or less recent investigations have associated hemp seed oil (HSO) to a range of health benefits.
We addressed a series of analytical strategies to comprehensively characterize the lipid classes of compounds in HSO extracted by cold-pressing.
The fatty acid profile as well as phytosterols and tocopherols were determined by gas chromatography (GC)-flame ionization detector (FID). Interestingly, HSO contained 14-15% of α-linolenic acid (C18:3, ω-3), which positively contributes todetermine the nutritional quality indexes of HSO (i.e. atherogenicity and thrombogenicity indexes). In the unsaponifiable fraction, β-sitosterol and γ-tocopherol were the predominant phytosterol and tocopherol, respectively.
Intact lipids were analyzed with high-resolution electrospray ionization-Orbitrap^TM-mass spectrometry using a “shotgun” lipidomic approach. The most abundant triacylglycerol of HSO was C54:6, as a consequence ofthe relatively high amount oflinoleic (C18:2) and linolenic (C18:3) fatty acids. Oxidized triacylglycerols were detected at a very low amount, confirming that cold-pressing minimizes the deterioration of polyunsaturated fatty acids and other susceptible compounds. Similarly, the level of diacylglycerols was low, indicating that cold-press HSO is marginally affected by hydrolytic processes. HSO also contained appreciable amounts of phospholipids (mainly phosphatidylcholine) and still uncharacterized glycerolipid components, probably glycolipids.
The distinctive compositional properties render HSO a candidate oil for specific nutraceutical applications, which await to be confirmed through dedicate structure-activity correlations. Further studies are required to complete the characterization of HSO at a molecular level, also including regioisomerism and the determination of minor polar non-lipid components.

In the last years, hemp seed food products have received renewed interest for health benefits, including the lowering of cholesterol and high blood pressure, as they contain phytochemicals with significant antioxidative properties, perfect balance of essential amino acids and optimal acidic composition. Indeed, hempseed contains 20-25% of protein, 25-35% of oil, 10-15% of insoluble fiber and a rich array of minerals.
Hemp oil is beneficial for human nutrition due to its high portion of unsaturated fatty acids. In particular, hempseed oil is especially rich in two essential fatty acids-linoleic acid (18:2, omega-6) and alpha-linolenic acid (18:3, omega-3). Also the byproducts originating from hemp food chain, in particular flour, show interesting nutritional properties, due to high amounts of proteins, dietary fibers, and other bioactive compounds that provide positive health benefits when consumed.
The recent developments in ATR-FTIR spectroscopy instrumentation and the applications of this technique have been expanding in food research, facilitating particularly the studies on edible oils and fats. FT-IR methods have demonstrated to be rapid and nondestructive analytical tools with minimum sample preparation necessary. In the present study ATR-FTIR spectroscopy has been used to evaluate the free fatty acids content in hemp seeds, oil that is obtained by them with cold pressing, and flour. The carbonyl peaks area on the second derivate of the ATR-FTIR spectra has been used to monitor the composition in free fatty acids in hemp seed oil and flour.

Determination of α-, β-thujone and camphor in sage infusions was achieved using attenuated total reflectance infrared Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) (spectral region 1801-1408 cm^-1 in 2^nd derivative form) and partial least square method (PLS) . The correlation coefficients (R²) and the root-mean- square error of calibration (RMSEC) of α-, β-thujone and camphor were 0.99, 0.0210, 0.96, 0.0180 and 0.99, 0.0697, respectively. The proposed method is simple, rapid and economical.

Manganese and Copper are two essential micronutrients required for several vital functions. Recently EFSA reviewed adequate intake values for these nutrients. AIs of 1.6 mg/day for copper, and 3 mg/day for manganese were established for adults.
This work aims at evaluating the contents of Mn and Cu in foods collect during the Portuguese Total Diet Study (TDS). One thousand one hundred and fifty two foods were prepared as consumed and analysed in ninety six pooled laboratory samples. Samples were digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide in a microwave assisted digestion and analysed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). Analytical procedures were carried out under rigorous metrological control and traceable to SI units.
The following food groups were analysed: dairy products, meat, fish, cereals, pulses, bread, potatoes and juices. The lowest amounts of Mn and Cu were found in milk with 27 ± 0.9 µg/kg and 42 ± 4.5 µg/kg, respectively. The highest concentration of Mn was present in pulses 12541 ± 237 µg/kg while the maximum value of Cu was observed in cereals 2451 ± 52 µg/kg.
The assessment of different food groups to overall AIs was based on combination of analytical data with consumption data from national food survey. Our results, showed that a diet including only these food groups is not sufficient to suppress the AIs of Mn or Cu for Portuguese adult population. Metrological tools were crucial to guarantee consistency conclusions.