Isotope chemometrics determines farming methods and geographical origin of vegetables from Yangtze River Delta Region, China

• Published in: Food chemistry 2021-04, Vol.342, p.128379-128379, Article 128379
• Main Authors: Liu, Xing, Liu, Zhi, Qian, Qunli, Song, Wei, Rogers, Karyne M., Rao, Qinxiong, Wang, Sheng, Zhang, Qicai, Shao, Shengzhi, Tian, Minglu, Song, Weiguo, Yuan, Yuwei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbon Isotopes - analysis; China; Discriminant Analysis; Farming methods; Geographical origin; Mass Spectrometry; Nitrogen Isotopes - analysis; Organic Agriculture - methods; Oxygen Isotopes - analysis; PLS-DA; Stable isotopes; Support Vector Machine; SVM; Vegetables; Vegetables - chemistry; Vegetables - metabolism; Yangtze River Delta Region
• ISSN: 0308-8146; 1873-7072
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2020.128379

•δ15N suggests up to 2/3′s of Shanghai vegetables is grown using green or organic methods.•The majority of Anhui and Zhejiang produce tended to be farmed conventionally.•δ13C and δ2H were the most important variables to determine the origin of vegetables.•Support vector machine showed better predictive ability than the PLA-DA models.•The origin prediction accuracy of Shanghai vegetables reached 100%. Shanghai city has encountered possible food fraud regarding the geographical mislabeling of vegetables for economic gain. A combination of δ13C, δ15N, δ2H and δ18O values and partial least squares discrimination analysis and support vector machine (SVM) methods were used for the first time to assess farming methods and determine the origin of vegetables from Shanghai city, Anhui and Zhejiang provinces. The results showed that 65.8% of Shanghai vegetables, 38.2% of Anhui vegetables and 23.6% of Zhejiang vegetables appeared to be grown using green or organic farming methods. The optimal discriminant model was obtained using SVM with a predictive accuracy of 100% for Shanghai vegetables. Zhejiang vegetables had a predictive accuracy of 91.7%, while it was difficult to distinguish Anhui vegetables from Shanghai or Zhejiang vegetables. Therefore, this study provided a useful method to identify vegetable farming methods and discriminate vegetables from Shanghai and Zhejiang.