It is important for researchers in the field of food quality assurance to keep a watchful eye on new analytical technology. This special issue of FFI journal deals with 5 topics related to new analytical technology, namely relative molar sensitivity (RMS) method coupling with quantitative NMR and HPLC, NMR for food metabolomics, HPLC-HRMS for pesticide multi-residue analysis, GC-HRMS for dioxin analysis in foods and NIR for food analysis. Utilization of new analytical technology often provides new scientific perspectives on food quality evaluation and control. It is hoped that this special issue is helpful to the business and scientific interests of our readers.

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Measuring content values such as functional compounds, food additives, and residual pesticides are important parameters for quality assessments of foods. In many cases, the sample extracts consist of multiple components and analytes should be determined under conditions that separate individual components. Chromatographic methods such as HPLC and GC are particularly widely used for such analyses. One concern is that the content values of analytes depend on the purity of each standard. To improve the reliability of the standards, we had developed ¹H quantitative NMR (¹H-qNMR) with an internal standard (IS) for the purity measurement of each standard. Since signal areas between a standard (analyte) and an IS correspond to numbers of nuclei of each, if a certified reference material (CRM) is used as the IS, the purity of the standard can be accurately determined by comparing the signal area of the analyte with that of the IS. The obtained purity can be used to correct the concentrations of the calibration standards for the analyte using chromatography. However, there is still a problem; not everyone has an NMR instrument. Therefore, we really expect reagent companies having NMR to supply reference materials (RMs) having an authentic purity value for all analytes. However, since there are huge numbers of analytes to be analyzed in the field of food analysis, this expectation is not realistic.
　Therefore, we focused on how to develop chromatography without a need for RMs for analytes. We decided to use a suitable RM of another compound which is available from reagent market. This has led to designing an off-line combination of chromatography and ¹H-qNMR for determination of relative molar sensitivity (RMS) of each analyte to a suitable RM. The RMS is calculated as follows: (1) artificial mixture of the analyte and the RM are subjected to ¹H-qNMR and chromatography; (2) the response ratio of the analyte and the RM, obtained by chromatography, is corrected using the molar ratio, as obtained by ¹H-qNMR. Then, using chromatography, analyte content can be determined from the RMS value, the peak area of the analyte and the RM, and the amount of the RM precisely added to the sample solution. In this review, the chromatography using RMS is introduced as a versatile tool for ensuring the reliability of food analysis. Furthermore, we also introduce the example of evaluating the reliability of quantitative values obtained by HPLC/UV and GC/FID using RMSs (Analytical chemistry, 2017, 89 (13), pp6963–6968), and the example applied to quality assessments of natural food coloring, cochineal extract (Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A, 2018, 35 (5), pp838–847).

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Food is taken on a daily basis and it is important to ensure its safety. However, foods are mostly derived from natural products, including various metabolites, making it an aggregate of very complex substances. Searching for marker components for predicting distinctive varieties and production areas from among these requires a great deal of effort. Therefore, metabolomics that analyzes various metabolite information collectively has been studied from the beginning of the 2000s.
For metabolomics GC-MS, LC-MS, CE-MS, NMR, etc. methods and equipment are used. Among these methods, NMR has lower sensitivity than other analytical methods, but theoretically, all compounds including hydrogen atoms are non-destructively detected.
NMR is often used qualitatively, for structure determinations of compounds, but in order to perform metabolomics, it is necessary to pay attention to quantitative measurements. For those who are new to NMR metabolomics, I introduce the basic procedures and examples for metabolomics using NMR based on methods published after 2015.

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Owing to its high sensitivity and selectivity, tandem mass spectrometry coupled with liquid or gas chromatography, i.e., LC-MS/MS and GC-MS/MS, operating in the selected reaction monitoring mode is currently the most commonly used technique for multiresidue analysis of pesticides and veterinary drugs in foods. However, this technique is limited in the number of compounds that can be monitored simultaneously, and it can monitor only targeted compounds. As an alternative to tandem mass spectrometers, recent advances in high-resolution mass spectrometers, such as time-of-flight (TOF) and Orbitrap mass spectrometers, have enabled their use in the analysis of pesticide and veterinary drug residues. The main advantages of high-resolution mass spectrometry compared with tandem mass spectrometry are as follows: (1) theoretically unlimited number of compounds can be simultaneously analyzed when operated in the full-scan mode, (2) optimization of MS parameters for individual compounds is not required, and (3) the acquired data can be reprocessed retrospectively for compounds that were not anticipated during the initial sample analysis. Although high-resolution mass spectrometers have been mainly used for screening and structural elucidation, recent improvements of mass resolution as well as sensitivity and dynamic range have led to their use in quantitative analysis of trace levels of contaminants in food samples. In this article, the applicability of liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry for quantification, confirmation, and screening of pesticide and veterinary drug residues in foods are discussed.

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Food is generally recognized as the main source of human intake of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, dibenzofurans, and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls, which are known collectively as dioxins. A total diet study is a useful method of estimating the average dietary intake of contaminants. We have conducted a nationwide total diet study of dioxins for the general Japanese population ((≥ 1 year old) annually since 1998. Here, we report the total diet study results for 2017 and also discuss the time trend of dietary intake of dioxins from total diet study results obtained over the last 20 years. High-resolution gas chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry has been used to provide sensitive and reliable determination of dioxin concentrations in a total diet sample. In 2017, the average daily intake of dioxins for a person weighing 50 kg, calculated at non-detected congener concentrations assumed to be equal to zero, was estimated to be 0.65 pg TEQ (toxic equivalents)/kg body weight (bw)/day. The value was well below the tolerable daily intake of 4 pg TEQ/kg bw/day for dioxins in Japan. The average intake was highest from fish and shellfish, followed by meat and eggs. The TEQ contribution of the fish and shellfish group to the total dietary TEQs was significant (88%). The latest average intake was about one-third of the average intake in 1998. Overall, the average dioxin intake appeared to be decreasing gradually during the period of study. This decreasing trend in the dietary intake of dioxins was mainly influenced by the decreased dioxin intakes from two food groups, fish and shellfish, and meat and eggs.

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Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has been applied to analyze a wide variety of foods, and its high utility as an analytical method is well known. In this article, I will provide information that will serve as a clue for readers to understand the basis of NIR spectroscopy, previous studies of targeted food analysis, and future challenges. In order to understand NIR spectroscopy, definitions and features are reviewed first, then reference books and workshops are introduced. Next, as a clue to understand the trend of NIR spectroscopy, various food fields reviewed in the reference books, some of actual situations, and needs reported in the JATAFF (Japan Association for Techno-innovation in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries) survey will be introduced. Furthermore, examples of adoption of NIR spectroscopy as an official method in Japan and abroad are summarized. Finally, examples of the current situation and future challenges related to food analysis and NIR spectroscopy will be introduced as follows:
1. The need to speed up and simplify official methods in quality control of food manufacturing process.
2. Highly urgent development issues are low cost and rapid microbiological inspection methods, quality control systems compatible with small quantity multiitem production, foreign substance inspection methods other than metals, on-line monitoring, nondestructive analysis method, etc.
3. Efforts to develop practical process management equipment from seed technology is extremely weak in Japan.
4. The development of a scientific evaluation system for food functionality.
5. Introduction of quality control methods such as PAT (Process Analytical Technology) and the necessity of a strategic approach not necessarily following the official law.

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Flavonoids are widely distributed in vascular plants and mosses. The basic structure consists of a fifteen-carbon skeleton, i.e. two phenyl rings (A- and B- rings) connected by a three-carbon (C-ring). Flavonoids are substituted with hydroxyl, methoxyl and/or glycosyl groups in various combinations. Moreover, aromatic and aliphatic acids are sometimes attached. About 10,000 kinds of flavonoids have been reported as natural compounds. The functions of flavonoids in living plants are also known well, e.g. pollinator attractants, oviposition stimulants, defensive agents, allelopathy, phytoalexins, etc.
‘Flavonoid Collection’ is a collection of authentic flavonoids isolated from various plants and is stored in the National Museum of Nature and Science, Japan. About 1,000 samples, especially flavonoids, are preserved. In this paper, we describe our research, including utilization of authentic specimens, from which we identified small amounts of flavonoids and reconstructed the blue color of Dutch Iris (Iris × hollandica) flowers. We characterized 17 C-glycosylflavones and an anthocyanin in the flowers of Dutch Iris, using some authentic specimens. Furthermore, we explored the intermolecular copigmentation in the blue flower of Dutch Iris by in vitro reconstruction using the isolated anthocyanin and C-glycosylflavone.
The research using authentic specimens enabled us to accelerate the identification of flavonoids. We plan to re-identify the stored ‘Flavonoid Collection’ using more modern analytical techniques and to construct an online database for further development of flavonoid research and related fields.

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Cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis are a serious health problem in civilized countries. It had been thought that fasting levels of serum triglycerides (TG) are the most important risk factor in development of cardiovascular diseases. However, recently post-prandial hyperlipidemia (post-prandial levels of serum TG) has been thought to be more important than the fasting levels. The serum TG levels are changed by various factors such as transport across gastrointestinal epithelial cells. Lipid metabolism in the gastrointestinal epithelial cells is controlled by endogenous regulators such as PPAR-alpha and AMP-activated kinase. Food components contain many types of compounds activating these regulators. Thus, we hypothesized that enhancement of fatty acid oxidation in the gastrointestinal epithelial cells would improve postprandial hyperlipidemia. Indeed, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), a polyunsaturated fatty acid contained in fish oil, improved the increase in serum TG levels after lipid administration through activation of PPAR-alpha in the gastrointestinal epithelial cells under high-fat-diet (HFD)- fed conditions. In addition, resveratrol, a polyphenol contained in grapes, also showed the same effects as DHA. The effects of resveratrol were thought to be mediated by activation of both PPAR-alpha and AMP-activated kinase in the intestine. On the other hand, HFD aggravates post-prandial levels of serum TG. The mechanism of this aggravation is unknown. However, it has been suggested that gastrointestinal inflammation is involved in this aggravation. Particularly, saturated fatty acids such as palmitic and stearic acids induce inflammation and increase transport of lipid across the gastrointestinal epithelial cells. These findings indicate that post-prandial hyperlipidemia can be improved by the enhancement of fatty acid oxidation in the gastrointestinal epithelial cells and that the gastrointestinal inflammation results in HFD-induced post-prandial hyperlipidemia, suggesting that anti-inflammatory food-derived compounds could improve hyperlipidemia.

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The legal framework for the use of flavourings in Europe, being the EU Flavouring Regulation (EC) No 1334/2008 was published and entered into force ten years ago.
After ten years it is appropriate to reflect back on the general provisions of this regulation and also focus on some specific aspects, in particular labelling provisions. The paper will focus on Business-to-Business requirements when flavourings are sold to food producers (customers) from two main perspectives. The business-to-business (B2B) labelling of natural flavourings will be addressed with some specific examples. In addition the paper will also elaborate on the requirements to inform customers about the presence of certain “restricted substances”, i.e. substances that occur naturally in source materials for flavourings and food ingredients with flavouring properties, but whose presence in certain foods is restricted and/or for which maximum levels are set.
It will further provide some elements from EFFA's Guidance Document on these labelling requirements.

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There are a wide variety of foods that are generally recognized as “health foods”. Among them, dietary supplements (DSs), containing certain components in a concentrated tablet-, capsule- or powdered form, are a major concern for safety issues because this form permits people to take excess amounts and use them in place of medical drugs to treat diseases. However, as the new category of “Foods with Health Claims” was introduced in 2015, the market of DSs has been growing rapidly, and the rate of DS use is expected to increase. To ensure safety, the following actions are needed: 1) conduct post-marketing research on adverse events, 2) evaluate the causal relationship with methods suited to investigating health foods and 3) collect data on adverse events. This review first provides an overview of health foods, adverse events related to DSs, and the current system of collecting adverse event reports. Then, we will introduce our approach to actively collecting adverse event reports from consumers using a nationwide online survey. We believe online surveys are suitable for confirming the onset of adverse events as well as identifying any related product/ingredient; thus, this is expected to become a new measure to complement the current system to ensure safety of DSs.

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This article briefly provides information on the flora of Uzbekistan and its potential in terms of the presence of wild medicinal plants that are of interest both from a scientific and practical point of view. Information on the history of the study of medicinal plants in Uzbekistan since the times of Abu Ali ibn Sino (Avicenna), Abu Rayhan Beruni and to date has been provided. The role of specialists of the Institute of Botany of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan conducted their studies under the guidance of Professor Khojimatov K.Kh., who contributed to the development of botanical resource research, as well as the creation and introduction of natural medicines, food colors, and non-alcoholic soft and alcoholic beverages on the basis of essential oil and medicinal wild plants of Uzbekistan.
The article also touches upon the issue of biodiversity conservation in connection with an increased anthropogenic factor. Information is reflected on the development and implementation of general guidelines and specific guidelines that are binding on procuring entities for a careful and rational approach to nature.
The results of ethnobotanical studies revealed 28 plant species used by traditional healers (tabibs) for medicinal purposes. Some of them are of interest and experiments are currently being conducted, the future results of which will serve to improve the population through their introduction into medical practice.

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