ABSTRACT
Food products can be deliberately substituted, partially or entirely, with similar, lower quality, and cheaper counterparts or unintentional errors can cause inadvertent mislabeling of products. The adulteration of food products is a major concern not only for preventing economic fraud, but also for safety reasons. This chapter describes the updated workflows, technologies, and tools that are being assessed in proteomics-related studies, and review the specific applications regarding food authenticity and, in some instances, food quality. Although there is a general tendency within the proteomics community to move to gel-free workflows, the fact remains that electrophoresis has been extensively used and continues to be used in food authentication studies. The chapter describes that have used proteomic technologies for the assessment of food authentication in different kinds of foodstuffs. Seafood products, including shellfish and fish, are among the most internationally traded food commodities. Classical protein electrophoretic techniques have been used for authentication of other food commodities, such as legumes and ginseng herbs.
