| We come across many cases of possible economic
adulteration of food items in which
people
need to know if claims of purity or
origin
are true. Because of the differences in isotopic signatures
of water, plant material and petroleum-derived
products, we can often tell if those
claims
are accurate. |
| "Fresh squeezed" orange juice commands a higher price than juice from
concentrate and the OJ industry works hard
at protecting the public perception of quality
in the product. It's easy to prepare juice
from concentrate and call it "fresh
squeezed". Fortunately, the water you
add to the concentrate doesn't look isotopically
like the water that was evaporated out of
the juice when the concentrate was made.
We can tell. |
 |
 |
Pure vanilla extract, prized by cooks and consumers of
baked goods, is extracted from the bean pods
of tropical orchids. The main flavor ingredient
of vanilla extract is a relatively simple
molecule that can be produced cheaply from
wood or petroleum derivatives. Fortunately,
those synthetics have a different carbon
isotope ratio than the orchid product. |
| The alcohol in wine and fortified wines like brandy is a fermentation product of the grape sugar.
Adulterated or entirely phony products are
often made from cheaper cane sugar (as is
rum) instead of the juice of the grape. The
isotope ratio is the giveaway. For wine vinegar to be real, it must also originate with
grapes - not an oil refinery. The acetic
acid of vinegar is an exact molecular match
with acetic acid from an industrial supply
- but not isotopically. |
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