Authentication of beef versus horse meat using 60 MHz 1H NMR spectroscopy

This work reports a candidate screening protocol to distinguish beef from horse meat based upon comparison of triglyceride signatures obtained by 60 MHz H-1 NMR spectroscopy. Using a simple chloroform-based extraction, we obtained classic low-field triglyceride spectra from typically a 10 min acquisition time. Peak integration was sufficient to differentiate samples of fresh beef (76 extractions) and horse (62 extractions) using Naive Bayes classification. Principal component analysis gave a. two-dimensional "authentic" beef region (p = 0.001) against which further spectra could be compared. This model was challenged using a subset of 23 freeze thawed training samples. The outcomes indicated that storing samples by freezing does not adversely affect the analysis. Of a further collection of extractions from previously unseen samples, 90/91 beef spectra were classified as authentic, and 16/16 horse spectra as non-authentic. We conclude that 60 MHz 1H NMR represents a feasible high-throughput approach for screening raw meat. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.