Davide Bertelli

Novel Food is a new category of food, regulated by the European Union Directive No. 2015/2283. This latter norm defines a food as “Novel” if it was not used “for human consumption to a significant degree within the Union before the date of entry into force of that regulation, namely 15 May 1997”. Recently, Novel Foods have received increased interest from researchers worldwide. In this sense, the key areas of interest are the discovery of new benefits for human health and the exploitation of these novel sources of materials in new fields of application. An emerging area in the pharmaceutical and medicinal fields is nanotechnology, which deals with the development of new delivery systems at a nanometric scale. In this context, this review aims to summarize the recent advances on the design and characterization of nanodelivery systems based on materials belonging to the Novel Food list, as well as on nanoceutical products formulated for delivering compounds derived from Novel Foods. Additionally, the safety hazard of using nanoparticles in food products, i.e., food supplements, has been discussed in view of the current European regulation, which considers nanomaterials as Novel Foods.

This work aimed to compare targeted and untargeted approaches based on NMR data for the construction of classification models for Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena (TBVM) and Balsamic Vinegar of Modena (BVM). Their complexity in terms of composition makes the authentication of these products difficult, which requires the employment of several time-consuming analytical methods. Here, 1H-NMR spectroscopy was selected as the analytical method for the analysis of TVBM and BVM due to its rapidity and efficacy in food authentication. 1H-NMR spectra of old (>12 years) and extra-old (>25 years) TVBM and BVM (>60 days) and aged (>3 years) BVM were acquired, and targeted and untargeted approaches were used for building unsupervised and supervised multivariate statistical modes. Targeted and untargeted approaches were based on quantitative results of peculiar compounds present in vinegar obtained through qNMR, and all spectral variables, respectively. Several classification models were employed, and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) demonstrated sensitivity and specificity percentages higher than 85% for both approaches. The most important discriminating variables were glucose, fructose, and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural. The untargeted approach proved to be the most promising strategy for the construction of LDA models of authentication for TVBM and BVM due to its easier applicability, rapidity, and slightly higher predictive performance. The proposed method for authenticating TBVM and BVM could be employed by Italian producers for safeguarding their valuable products.