Economically Motivated Adulteration (Food Fraud) Research Publications

Economically motivated adulteration (EMA) occurs in food when someone intentionally leaves out, takes out, or substitutes a valuable ingredient or part of a food. EMA also occurs when someone adds a substance to a food to make it appear better or of greater value. To protect the safety of our food supply and the integrity of the market, FDA scientists develop a variety of methods for identifying what makes a food unique and for detecting when fraud has occurred in food, called food fraud. See our Economically Motivated Adulteration page for more details.

The Scientific Publications by FDA Staff database houses the most recent research publications on food. See the table below for publications specifically related to EMA in food.

Topic	Subtopic	Title	Journal	Authors	Date
Dietary supplements	Bitter orange	Analysis of bitter orange dietary supplements for natural and synthetic phenethylamines by LC-MS/MS	Drug Testing & Analysis	Pawar RS, Sagi S, Leontyev D	2020 Sept
Dietary supplements	Echinacea	HPLC-UV, Metabarcoding and Genome Skims of Botanical Dietary Supplements: A Case Study in Echinacea	Planta Medica	Handy SM, Pawar RS, Ottesen AR, Ramachandran P, Sagi S, Zhang N, Hsu E, Erickson DL	2021 Jan
Dietary supplements	Echinacea	An analysis of Echinacea chloroplast genomes: Implications for future botanical identification	Scientific Reports	Zhang N, Erickson DL, Ramachandran P. et al	2017 March
Dietary supplements	Plants	Development of a Reference Standard Library of Chloroplast Genome Sequences, GenomeTrakrCP	Planta Medica	Zhang N, Ramachandran P, Wen J, Duke JA, Metzman H, McLaughlin W, Ottesen AR, Timme RE, Handy SM	2017 Dec
Dietary supplements	Plants	Assessment of the Authenticity of Herbal Dietary Supplements: Comparison of Chemical and DNA Barcoding Methods	Planta Medica	Pawar RS, Handy SM, Cheng R, Shyong N, Grundel E	2017 July
Food	Blue crab	Evaluation of variation within the barcode region of Cytochrome c Oxidase I (COI) for the detection of commercial Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, 1896 (blue crab) products of non-US origin	PeerJ	Windsor AM, Moore MK, Warner KA, Stadig SR, Deeds JR	2019 Nov
Food	Fish	Protocol for building a reference standard sequence library for DNA-based seafood identification	Journal of AOAC International	Deeds JR, Handy SM, Fry F Jr, Granade H, Williams JT, Powers M, Shipp R, Weigt LA	2014 Nov-Dec
Food	Fish	A single-laboratory validated method for the generation of DNA barcodes for the identification of fish for regulatory compliance	Journal of AOAC International	Handy SM, Deeds JR, Ivanova NV, Hebert PD, Hanner RH, Ormos A, Weigt LA, Moore MM, Yancy HF	2011 Jan-Feb
Food	Green olives	Quantitation of copper chlorophylls in green table olives by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography with inductively coupled plasma isotope dilution mass spectrometry	Journal of Chromatography A	Petigara Harp, B, Scholl P, Gray P, and Delmonte P	2020 June
Food	Green olives	High resolution mass spectral data from the analysis of copper chlorophylls and copper chlorophyll degradation products in bright green table olives	Data in Brief	Scholl, P, Gray, P, Petigara Harp B, and Delmonte, P	2020 April
Food	Meat binders	Selected reaction monitoring method to determine the species origin of blood-based binding agents in meats: a collaborative study.	Food Chemistry	Grundy HH, Read WA, Macarthur R, Dickinson M, Charlton AJ, Dušek M, Breidbach A, Scholl PF, Newsome GA, Bell D, Alewijn M	2013 Dec
Food	Olive oil	Determination of Moisture in Olive Oil: Rapid FT-NIR Spectroscopic Procedure Based on the Karl-Fischer Reference Method	Journal of Oleo Science	Karunathilaka SR, Fardin-Kia AR, Roberts D, Mossoba MM	2020 Nov
Food	Olive oil	A Rapid, Univariate FT-NIR Procedure to Determine Moisture Concentration in Olive Oil	Journal of Oleo Science	Fardin-Kia AR, Karunathilaka SR, Yakes BJ, Lee K, Ellsworth Z, Brückner L, Mossoba MM	2019 Nov
Food	Olive oil	First Application of Newly Developed FT-NIR Spectroscopic Methodology to Predict Authenticity of Extra Virgin Olive Oil Retail Products in the USA	Lipids	Mossoba MM, Azizian H, Fardin-Kia AR, Karunathilaka SR, Kramer JKG	2017 April
Food	Olive oil	Developing FT-NIR and PLS1 Methodology for Predicting Adulteration in Representative Varieties/Blends of Extra Virgin Olive Oils	Lipids	Azizian H, Mossoba MM, Fardin-Kia AR, Karunathilaka SR, Kramer JK	2016 Nov
Food	Olive oil	Nontargeted, Rapid Screening of Extra Virgin Olive Oil Products for Authenticity Using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy in Combination with Conformity Index and Multivariate Statistical Analyses	Journal of Food Science	Karunathilaka SR, Kia AF, Srigley C, Chung JK, Mossoba MM	2016 Sept
Food	Olive oil	Authenticity Assessment of Extra Virgin Olive Oil: Evaluation of Desmethylsterols and Triterpene Dialcohols	Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society	Srigley, CT, Oles CJ, Kia ARF, Mossoba MM	2016 Feb
Food	Olive oil	Novel, Rapid Identification, and Quantification of Adulterants in Extra Virgin Olive Oil Using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy and Chemometrics	Lipids	Azizian H, Mossoba MM, Fardin-Kia AR, Delmonte P, Karunathilaka SR, Kramer JK	2015 June
Food	Pine nuts	Development of a locked nucleic acid real-time polymerase chain reaction assay for the detection of Pinus armandii in mixed species pine nut samples associated with dysgeusia	Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry	Handy SM, Timme RE, Jacob SM, Deeds JR	2013 Feb
Food	Pine nuts	Use of the chloroplast gene ycf1 for the genetic differentiation of pine nuts obtained from consumers experiencing dysgeusia	Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry	Handy SM, Parks MB, Deeds JR, Liston A, de Jager LS, Luccioli S, Kwegyir-Afful E, Fardin-Kia AR, Begley TH, Rader JI, Diachenko GW	2011 Oct
Food	Seaweed	Suitability of DNA Sequencing Tools for Identifying Edible Seaweeds Sold in the United States	Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry	Handy SM, Ott BM, Hunter ES, Zhang S, Erickson DL, Wolle MM, Conklin SD, Lane CE	2020 Dec
Food	Shellfish	Optimization and evaluation of a method for the generation of DNA barcodes for the identification of crustaceans	LWT	Eischeid AC, Stadig SR, Handy SM, Fry FS, Deeds JR	2016 Nov
Food	Sweetener	Quantitation of Saccharin and Cyclamate in Tabletop Formulations by Portable Raman and NIR Spectrometers in Combination with Partial Least Squares Regression	Food Analytical Methods	Karunathilaka SR, Yakes BJ, Farris S, Michael TJ, He K, Chung JK, Shah R, Mossoba MM	2018 April
Melamine in food	Protein-containing foods	A liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for the detection of economically motivated adulteration in protein-containing foods	Journal of Chromatography A	MacMahon S, Begley TH, Diachenko GW, Stromgren SA	2012 Jan
Melamine in food	Milk powder	A portable mid-infrared spectrometer and a non-targeted chemometric approach for the rapid screening of economically motivated adulteration of milk powder	International Dairy Journal	Limm W, Karunathilaka SR, Yakes BJ, Mossoba MM	2018 Oct
Melamine in food	Milk powder	First use of handheld Raman spectroscopic devices and on-board chemometric analysis for the detection of milk powder adulteration	Food Control	Karunathilaka SR, Yakes BJ, He K, Brückner L, Mossoba MM	2018 Oct
Melamine in food	Milk powder	Non-targeted NIR spectroscopy and SIMCA classification for commercial milk powder authentication: A study using eleven potential adulterants	Heliyon	Karunathilaka SR, Yakes BJ, He K, Chung JK, Mossoba M	2018 Sept
Melamine in food	Milk powder	Effects of the Adulteration Technique on the Near-Infrared Detection of Melamine in Milk Powder	Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry	Scholl PF, Bergana MM, Yakes BJ, Xie Z, Zbylut S, Downey G, Mossoba M, Jablonski J, Magaletta R, Holroyd SE, Buehler M, Qin J, Hurst W, LaPointe JH, Roberts D, Zrybko C, Mackey A, Holton JD, Israelson GA, Payne A, Kim MS, Chao K, Moore JC	2017 July
Melamine in food	Milk powder	Effects of Wet-Blending on Detection of Melamine in Spray-Dried Lactose	Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry	Yakes BJ, Bergana MM, Scholl PF, Mossoba MM, Karunathilaka SR, Ackerman LK, Holton JD, Gao B, and Moore JC	2017 May
Melamine in food	Milk powder	Non-protein nitrogen determination: A screening tool for nitrogenous compound adulteration of milk powder	International Dairy Journal	DeVries JW, Greene GW, Payne A, Zbylut S, Scholl PF, Wehling P, Evers JM, Moore JC	2017 May
Melamine in food	Milk powder	Non-targeted detection of milk powder adulteration using Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics: melamine case study	Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A	Karunathilaka SR, Farris S, Mossoba MM, Moore JC, Yakes BJ	2017 Feb
Melamine in food	Milk powder	Characterising variances of milk powder and instrumentation for the development of a non-targeted, Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics detection method for the evaluation of authenticity	Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A	Karunathilaka SR, Farris S, Mossoba MM, Moore JC, Yakes BJ	2016 June
Melamine in food	Milk powder	Rapid turbidimetric detection of milk powder adulteration with plant proteins	Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry	Scholl PF, Farris SM, Mossoba MM	2014 Feb