Products labeled as “natural” that have been adulterated with synthetic analogues have become an unwelcome fixture in the global flavour, fragrance and supplement marketplaces. Carbon-14 is one isotopic tool that can be employed to identify mislabeling by measuring the percentage of plant-derived and petrochemical carbon in a compound or final product in solid, liquid or gaseous form. The method works because organic molecules in modern plants like almonds contain a known level of Carbon-14, while the law of radioactive decay and approximately 5730-year half-life of the radioactive isotope of carbon means molecules derived from fossil fuel like artificial benzaldehyde do not contain C-14. Accelerator Mass Spectrometry can measure the plant-/animal-derived versus synthetic source of the carbon contained in materials by measuring the amount of radiocarbon in the product relative to a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) modern reference standard (SRM 4990C). This ratio is calculated as a percentage and reported as “percent modern carbon” (pMC). 100 pMC indicates entirely recent respiration such as from plants (100% natural source) and 0 pMC indicates fossil respiration such as in petroleum and petrochemicals (100% synthetic source). A value in between represents a mixture. “% Biobased Carbon” is the standardized unit for designating modern plant, animal or microbiological source as opposed to fossil sources in industrial applications such as biobased products, biofuels, CO2 emissions. The methodology has been standardized by CEN, ASTM and ISO and has been used by the USDA and in a number of government and private certification programs internationally. Since the FDA’s informal definition of “natural” specifies that products contain “nothing artificial or synthetic”, such an analytical tool may assist the flavour chemist or quality assurance team in identifying synthetic imitations of ingredients derived from petrochemicals that have been mislabeled as “natural”.

Identifying the mislabeling of natural food products with carbon-14 testing

254th National Meeting (2017)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.