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This new book from CRC Press is available to purchase either as an e-book or as hard copy.

After a general historical introduction to the adulteration of spices, the book then includes a chapter on global standards and regulations regarding spice purity (both adulteration/authenticity, and contaminants such as mycotoxins and pesticide residues).  It then has separate chapters giving an overview of adulteration and authenticity testing for specific spices; black pepper, chilli, nutmeg, saffron, ginger and turmeric.  After sections on mycotoxins and pesticides, it ends by discussing supply-and-demand pressures and the sustainable and ethical sourcing of spices.

Photo by Calum Lewis on Unsplash

This application note from Canadian testing company Purity-IQ builds upon published methods to describe the use of proton NMR in authenticity testing of herbs and spices.  Proton NMR, with non-targeted metabolomic profiling, can be used for botanical species authentication but also to detect product anomalies.  It is particularly useful for detecting dyes, as both natural and synthetic dyes tend to contain spectrally-distinctive aromatic ring structures.  In this application, the principle was demonstrated by the clear differentiation of paprika spiked with Sudan dyes, turmeric spiked with metanil yellow, and beet/grape extracts spiked with black rice extract.

Image from the application note.

Authenticate is a cloud based technology platform, developed by the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) and the Seasoning and Spices Association (SSA) in liaison with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS), which provides companies with a tool to help combat food fraud in herbs and spices.

Basic Membership to the Authenticate system is free.

Read more about it.