Fast tracking of adulterants and bacterial contamination in food via Raman and infrared spectroscopies: paving the way for a healthy and safe world

Abstract

Food adulteration adversely affects human health. Therefore, its fast and accurate detection is essentially required to alleviate health concerns. While there are several methods available for the detection of food adulterants, some of them are slow and require large amounts of samples for analysis. Optical spectroscopy methods, especially Raman and infrared (IR), are emerging techniques owing to their fast and accurate detection abilities as well as their ability to examine a very small amount of sample. This paper critically discusses the advancements in the detection of food adulterants using Raman and IR spectroscopies, with a major focus on identifying adulterants in milk, honey, olive oil, coconut water, clove essential oil, and spices (turmeric and saffron). We also discuss the role of Raman and IR spectroscopies in detecting bacterial contamination in food. The fundamentals and application of several Raman and IR-based techniques, namely, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), Fourier transform (FT)-Raman, point-scan, portable Raman and IR, near and mid-IR, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and different associated types of chemometric methods are substantially discussed for the aforementioned applications. Finally, we also propose ways to further advance food security applications via these optical spectroscopy tools.