Analysis of Fats and Vegetable Oils

Authenticity and detection of adulterations in foods, concretely oils and fats, are critical considerations for researchers, consumers, manufacturers, traders, and regulatory agencies. Traditional methods for authentication and quality control of edible vegetable oils are in most cases time-consuming, complex, labor-intensive, and costly, often demanding technical expertise for data interpretation. For this reason, the use of spectroscopic techniques (mainly NIR, MIR, Raman, and NMR), as well other techniques such as electronic noses and tongues, are excellent analytical tools that can replace the traditional methods and can be implemented in quality control laboratories in food industries. These techniques offer numerous advantages, including being rapid, precise, cost-effective, and capable of conducting multiple analyses simultaneously from a single spectrum and/or measurement. Moreover, there is no need or a minimal sample pretreatment, and in most cases, it is possible to use portable instruments that allow an in-situ measurement of samples. Thus, updated applications regarding non-invasive and non-destructive methods including their scope, type of samples and instruments, jointly with the type of multivariate analysis are reviewed in this chapter.