Stable Isotopes and Elemental Profiles as Guardians of Food and Beverage Integrity: Tracing Origins and Evaluating Quality
A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Analytical Methods".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 November 2025 | Viewed by 438
Special Issue Editors
Interests: stable isotopes as tracers of the food and beverages origin and in assessment of them quality; global carbon cycle; the development of isotopic methods for 13C, 18O, 2H, 15N measurements in different matrices
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS); investigation of elemental content along the food chain; multi-element fingerprinting of beverages; analysis of rare earth elements
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Similarly to how each person has a unique fingerprint, each beverage or food product has a fingerprint, i.e., a unique chemical signature that allows the product to be identified. To visualize this fingerprint, appropriate analytical methods (spectrometric or spectroscopic) are required. The isotope signatures of beverages and food products are determined according to region or process specificity, which means that products can be differentiated based on geographical region (such as with mineral water, fresh fruit juices, eggs, meat, cheese, or honey), soil, fertilization processes, the producers’ fingerprint, and fraudulent practices (such as the watering down of wines and spirits or the addition of sugar to honey). The elemental profile (macro- and microminerals or potentially toxic elements) of different matrices is undoubtedly related to the geological environment and thus varies spatially depending on geological, lithological, and soil conditions. Thus, corroboration between stable isotopes and elemental profiles for a specific beverage or foodstuff can provide important information regarding its geographical origin and aid in evaluating its quality.
This Special Issue will include new research based on stable isotopes and elemental profiles in food and beverages, together with statistical techniques, in order to emphasize traceability and quality assurance.
You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Beverages.
Dr. Gabriela Cristea
Dr. Adriana Dehelean
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- stable isotopes
- elemental profiling
- food traceability
- geographical origin
- quality assurance
- fraud detection
- chemometrics
- spectroscopic techniques
- authenticity
- geochemical fingerprinting
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