Nowadays, more and more products of doubtable origin are entering the market, downgrading the value of authentic products and the labor of honest producers. Consequently, it becomes a necessity the traceability and the authenticity of these products, first, to protect the local production and, second, to inform the consumers about the origin of the products. The most capable and promising analytical technique for identifying the geographical traceability of individual products is the analysis of stable isotopes. For example, analyzing the δ¹⁸? and δ²H of the milk and the water of the milk can determine the geographical origin of the animal. Furthermore, measuring the values of δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N will provide with the information of the feed supplied to livestock which is an extra detail for characterization of the geographical origin.

Wine products such as vinegar are susceptible to serious fraud incidents, as the result of a mixing of chemical ingredients and water, with a direct impact on both consumers and producers. However, a manufactured with a natural vinegar displays different isotopic identity despite their chemical identity. The isotopic distribution of elements of raw materials is determined by local conditions (e.g. rainfall, soil, topography, climate) during the environmental and biochemical pathway from the atmosphere, rain water and soil, plant (vineyard), wine and finally the vinegar. ¹⁸?/¹⁶?, ¹³C/¹²C and D/H isotope values of authentic vinegars in Greece range from -1.8‰ to +5.0‰, from -23.7‰ to -27.8‰ and from 98 ppm to 105 ppm, respectively. Finally, ¹⁴C values reflected the ¹⁴C variations of atmospheric CO₂.

In previous GWAS work in obese/overweight 77 Korean women, five new loci associated with BMR and BMI, including NRG3, OR8U8, BCL2L2-PABPN1, PABPN1, and SLC22A17 were identified. This study aimed to identify key metabolites and metabolic pathways controlled by significant genes (mGWAS).
Methods: Through the ultra performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q-TOF-MS), the data were analyzed using partial least-squares discriminate analysis (PLS-DA) score plots. Possible metabolic pathways related to lean and obesity were detected by metabolites associated with GWAS.
Results: Waist, Lean body mass, body fat mass were strongly affected by BMI rather than BMR. However, plasma TG and TC were significantly higher in obesity with Low BMR than in lean with High BMR. The levels of metabolites such as lyso-phosphatidylcholines (LPC) with saturated fatty acids (C14:0, C16:0), branched-chain amino acids (BCAA; Leu, Ile, Val), aromatic amino acids (AAA; Phe, Trp, Tyr), uric acid (UA) and arginine were increased, but LPCs with unsaturated fatty acids (C18:1, C18:2, C20:3, C20:4, C20:5) and medium chain acyl-carnitine (AcyCN) were decreased in obesity classified by either BMI or BMR. Targeting to NRG3, BCL2L2 PABPN1 and SLC22A17 genes from GWAS, the metabolites (mGWAS) were positively associated with UA, succinic acid, arginine, uridine and aspartic acid. UA and arginine were common metabolites from both the general metabolomics and targeted obese genes classified BMI and BMR. Conclusion: The metabolites associated with the disturbance of beta -oxidation, lipid, BCAA and AAA catabolism, urea cycle and purine/pyrimidine metabolism play the important roles in the obesity classified by either BMI or BMR in middle age of Korean women. This research enables us to better understand obesity and increases the predictability of the obesity related risk by mGWAS.

Given that culture condition of crops affects metabolites of products and consequently consumers’ metabolism, we investigate the metabolic difference of conventional and naturally grown green coarse tea (Bancha). Previous work in 2015 showed that only naturally grown Bancha tea was observed to significantly increase the consumers’ locomotive energy expenditure with counter decrease of household activities, resulting in a higher shift of exercise level. In terms of metabolite categories that distinguished between the culture conditions, conventional tea was observed to express higher primary metabolite such as amino acid, while naturally grown tea contained superior dose of secondary metabolites, especially flavonoid. Here we show replication analysis which uses Green Coarse Tea produced in 2016. Same as the previous work, naturally grown tea contained superior dose of secondary metabolites, especially flavonoid. The occurrence of intrinsic compounds in each culture condition was weaker than the quantitative features of common compound in explaining the difference. Statistically significant invariant features of culture conditions were found both in expression patterns and intensity of distinctive common compounds considerably overlapping with drug categories. These results suggest that tea cultured in conventional farming method could decrease the health protective effects that the tea plant originally possesses in natural environment. Incorporation of macroscopic elements such as culture conditions may be as important as food composition analysis in discussing long-term health effect.

METROFOOD-RI is a European Research Infrastructure (RI) aiming at promoting metrology in food and nutrition. In the present work, a mapping of existing RIs and networks of the South Eastern European (SEE) METROFOOD partner countries (i.e. FYROM, Greece, Hungary, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Slovenia), related directly or indirectly to the Agrifood sector, is presented and discussed. As reference METROFOOD partner country, The Netherlands is considered.