NMR-based metabolomics: quality and authenticity of plant-based foods

Nowadays metabolomics is a widely accepted approach in several scientific disciplines, especially in food science. The possibility to identify a wide range of metabolites (untargeted analysis) allowed to evaluate various food characteristics, regarding quality, adulteration, geographical origin, as well as secondary species-specific metabolites endowed with nutraceutical properties. In the present chapter, latest findings of plant-based foods investigated by NMR-based metabolomics are presented. Almost all of the recent studies were focused on quality assessment and authenticity; different aspects such as geographical origin, metabolic modifications upon stress, nutraceutical properties, and fraud detection are described as well. The here reported plant-based foods are balsamic and traditional balsamic vinegars, cereals, cocoa, coffee, fruits, legumes, spices, vegetables and vegetable oils, wine, beer, and spirits. A brief paragraph is concerning organic and conventional foods, which is a new growing scientific field of interest for researchers encouraged by the increasing consumers’ demand. The results here reported testify the capability and the power of this approach thus endorsing NMR spectroscopy as a valid alternative or complement to the chemical and physical analysis nowadays routinely applied for the quality assessment.