In 2017 the Japanese Agricultural Standard (JAS) was revised to extend objects for export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products and food. Analytical methods can be also standardized newly.
Analytical methods using high-performance liquid chromatography for O –methylated catechin (EGCG3"Me) in ‘Benifuuki’ green tea (Camellia sinensis L.) and β-cryptoxanthin in Satsuma mandarin were validated by inter-laboratory collaborative studies performed by FAMIC and have been standardized as JAS 0002 and JAS 0003, respectively.

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Food labeling is an important means of communication between consumers and producers. Food labeling is currently regulated under several laws and the related legislation was developed because of background issues associated with consumer affairs and false labeling.
The Food Labeling Act has been enforced since April 2015 by the Consumer Affairs Agency. Analytical methods were also legislated under subordinate rules (i.e. standards for food labeling and enforcement order) and food labeling is monitored and executed by these subordinate rules. One of the health promotion food labeling requirements under the new Food Labeling Act was a mandatory requirement to specify nutritional facts on the food label. Improper ingredient values and health claims on the labels of health promotion foods may be misleading to the customers and, therefore, analytical techniques to document nutrition facts and functional ingredients have become more important.

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The cultivation area is an important factor in determining the market value of food materials. The Japanese Food Labeling Law requires country of origin labeling (COOL) for the main ingredient, by weight, in all processed foods manufactured in Japan since Sep 2017. Thus, development of the analytical methods for tracing geographical origin of the ingredient in processed foods is strongly required. The relationship between chemical compositions and cultivation areas has been evaluated using stable isotope ratios and trace elements compositions. We review the applications for the discrimination of geographical origin of food materials by analytical method focusing on stable isotope (e.g. δD, δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N, δ¹⁸O, δ³⁴S, ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁷Pb) and trace element analyses.

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Genetically modified (GM) crops have been developed and their industrial use has been increasing worldwide. In many countries, however, the use of GM crops is controversial among general consumers. Thus, to provide consumers with accurate information about food ingredients and to expand consumers' choices, many countries, including Japan, have introduced legislation requiring labels to be applied to agricultural products that contain approved GM crops at more than a specified threshold level. That threshold has been set at 5% since the beginning of the GM food labeling system in Japan.
To support the GM food labeling system, many detection methods for approved GM events have been developed, validated and adopted as official detection methods since the enactment of GM food labeling system. The official detection methods have been updated from time to time, in accordance with the emergence of newly developed GM crops. Especially for maize, to deal with the increasing number of stacked seeds, several revisions of quantitative detection methods were adopted.
In this article, the outline of GM food labeling system in Japan is described. Since the number of GM maize products is quite large and the detection scheme for maize is a little complicated, the current official detection methods for maize is explained.

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The increase of allergic diseases such as nasal allergy, food allergy, etc., is a growing problem in societies. In Japan, the labeling of food allergens in processed foods has been mandatory since April 2001 and became the first regulation in the world providing information to consumers with respect to food allergy. Regulations in accordance with findings on food allergies have been thoroughly adjusted thereafter for more than 17 years. Implementation of labeling regulations for food allergens was very difficult but has been made possible with the establishment of monitoring thresholds by Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (MHLW) and help from industries that developed detection methods, including standard materials. This review gives comprehensive insights into detection methods and labeling regulations for food allergens in Japan.

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Cultivar identification using DNA fingerprinting is required to scientifically ensure the reliability of food labeling and also for plant variety protection. Here, recent advances in cultivar identification techniques are summarized. In DNA marker techniques, long core motif simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and insertion polymorphisms of transposal elements are utilized for minimizing genotyping errors and simple and efficient discrimination, respectively. In DNA amplification and detection techniques, loop-mediated isothermal identification (LAMP) and nucleic acid chromatography are utilized for rapid and convenient tests.

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To perform quality guarantee service on demand for consumers, food description on a label is an important medium that conveys the accurate evaluation and selection results. However, chemical analyses for production area discrimination, foreign substance contamination detection, and component quantification, are time-consuming. Moreover, these conventional destructive analyses require sampling inspection, not a total number inspection; therefore, a rapid nondestructive measurement technique is strongly required. Representative examples of nondestructive measurements for a total inspection currently under operation are grading of sugar content of fruits, quantification of principal components of cereals by near-infrared spectroscopy, evaluation of shape and color of agricultural products using visible images, and detection of foreign matter (metal) by X-ray imaging. This article reviews the research trends of nondestructive measurement techniques especially for spectroscopic methods; near-infrared, Raman, fluorescent, terahertz spectroscopy, and hyper spectral imaging corresponding to relevant keywords for food description: identification, discrimination, adulteration, authenticity etc. This review also refers to determination of trace amounts of components such as functional ingredients recently in strong demand.

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Human food preference is determined by multiple factors. They include not only sensory information, which includes gustation, olfaction, other organ functions and interactions among them, but also physiological, social and cultural contexts. Recent findings on the response of some kinds of taste receptors to high salt might provide psychological insight on high salty taste as a multisensory perception. Many studies have reported that subjective taste intensity is enhanced by odors that are congruent. Some reports have suggested that subjective taste is more strongly enhanced by retronasal than by orthonasal odor detection. Differences between the two routes include the direction of airflow accompanying breathing. Thus, the kinetic sensation of breathing might be a determining factor for odor-induced taste enhancement.
In addition to effects of multisensory perception on taste, this review examines experimental psychological approaches related to human food preference and aversion such as neophobia, sensory-specific satiety, food aversion learning, food craving, and the effect of heuristics on risk perception.

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In our research to develop healthy foods or preventive medicines from edible and medicinal herbs in Okinawa, we focused on the antioxidant activities of those bioresources. We first confirmed that the herbal antioxidant activities of such herbs increased upon ultraviolet irradiation treatment, explaining the high antioxidant activity of Okinawan vegetables which grow under exposure to stronger ultraviolet light than in other prefectures in Japan. Quercetin, chlorogenic acid, and gallic acid derivatives were isolated as antioxidant components from Okinawa herbs. Dimerumic acid was also isolated from the mold Monascus anka. Antidiabetic, hepatoprotective, cancer preventive, and cardioprotective actions were examined in vivo using herbal extracts. All the antioxidant components showed strong radical scavenging activities in vitro; however, the concentrations of these compounds when used in vivo seemed to be too low to exhibit radical scavenging activity. It was, thus, suggested that the antioxidants might have an alternative action to a direct radical scavenging activity. Therefore, I performed a literature survey of antioxidant action in vivo. Accumulated evidence has emerged that antioxidant phytochemicals show pleiotropic actions in vivo including an induction of antioxidant enzymes and modulation of the activity of various protein kinases. The multitargeted beneficial effects of antioxidant phytochemicals can be rationally explained using a xenohormesis concept, in which phytochemicals are the products of plant evolutionary adaptation to stress and the ability of phytochemicals to induce a stress-adaptive response has been evolutionarily conserved in animals.

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1,2,3,4,5,6-Cyclohexanehexol inositol consists of nine distinct stereoisomers. Myo-inositol (MI) is the most prominent isomer and is widely distributed in its free form or as a bound-component of inositol phosphates (eg, phytate) or phospholipids (eg, phosphatidylinositol) in plant and animal foods. MI prevents fatty liver, even when induced by a strong lipogenic sugar such as fructose, probably due to repression of fructolysis/glycolysis and fatty acid synthesis rather than enhancement of fatty acid β-oxidation. In addition, MI promotes glucose transporter 4 translocation due to potentiation of the insulin signaling pathway in skeletal muscle following secretion of insulin. This suggests that MI is useful for the prevention of metabolic diseases such as fatty liver and diabetes.

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Mugi Mesi (boiled rice with barley) is a kind of Kate Mesi (boiled rice with cereals such as millets, potatoes or vegetables, etc.). Formerly it was a staple food, especially for farmers. The staple food changed from Mugi Mesi to boiled rice owing to the economic development in our country in the 1960's. Furthermore, dietary preferences changed to a more affluent style with economic development, and various problems occurred along with an increase in nutritionally imbalanced diets, irregular and high energy meals, etc. Recent clinical studies have suggested that the consumption of barley might reduce many risk factors associated with metabolic syndromes including diabetes, dyslipidemia and obesity. At present, Mugi Mesi and barley dishes represent healthy foods for people.

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