Consonni Roberto, Ordoudi Stella A, Cagliani Laura R, Tsiangali Maria, Tsimidou Maria Z
Institute for Macromolecular Studies, NMR Laboratory, National Research Council, v. Corti 12, 20133 Milan, Italy.
Laboratory of Food Chemistry and Technology (LFCT), School of Chemistry, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh), 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece.
Molecules. 2016 Feb 29;21(3):286. doi: 10.3390/molecules21030286.
In previous works on authentic samples of saffron of known history (harvest and processing year, storage conditions, and length of time) some biomarkers were proposed using both FT-IR and NMR metabolomics regarding the shelf life of the product. This work addresses the difficulties to trace back the "age" of commercial saffron samples of unknown history, sets a limit value above which these products can be considered substandard, and offers a useful tool to combat saffron mislabeling and fraud with low-quality saffron material. Investigations of authentic and commercial saffron samples of different origin and harvest year, which had been stored under controlled conditions for different lengths of time, allowed a clear-cut clustering of samples in two groups according to the storage period irrespectively of the provenience. In this respect, the four-year cut off point proposed in our previous work assisted to trace back the "age" of unknown samples and to check for possible mislabeling practices.
在之前关于已知历史（收获和加工年份、储存条件以及时长）的藏红花真品样本的研究中，利用傅里叶变换红外光谱（FT-IR）和核磁共振（NMR）代谢组学提出了一些关于该产品保质期的生物标志物。这项工作解决了追溯历史不明的商业藏红花样本“年份”的难题，设定了一个极限值，超过该值这些产品可被视为不合格，并提供了一个有用的工具来打击藏红花贴错标签以及用低质量藏红花材料进行欺诈的行为。对不同产地和收获年份、在可控条件下储存了不同时长的真品和商业藏红花样本进行研究，使得样本能够根据储存期被明确分为两组，而与产地无关。在这方面，我们之前工作中提出的四年时间节点有助于追溯未知样本的“年份”并检查可能的贴错标签行为。
