The potentiality of NMR based metabolomics in food science and food authentication assessment

In the last years there was an increasing interest on NMR spectroscopy, whose application experienced an exponential growth in several research fields, particularly in food science. NMR was born as the elective technique for structure elucidation of molecules and nowadays is largely adopted to investigate complex mixtures. In the era of the "omics" techniques, NMR was rapidly enrolled as one of the most powerful methods to approach metabolomics studies. Its use in analytical routines, characterized by rapid and reproducible measurements, would provide the identification of a wide range of chemical compounds in the mixture under investigation simultaneously, revealing potential markers, disclosing sophisticated frauds or addressing the geographical origin. The great economic value of high quality or guaranteed foods demands highly refined characterization tools to protect consumers and the productions of valuable foods. This scenario suggests metabolomics as a privileged approach for the modern analytical studies in the next decades. The large potentiality of NMR techniques is here presented through specific applications and using different techniques also focused on authentication process on different food products, like Traditional Balsamic vinegar of Modena, tomato paste, roasted coffee, honey and saffron.