Nontarget Screening and Health Risk of Hazardous Volatile and Semivolatile Organic Compounds in Premade Food Using a...

Area of Science:

• Food Science
• Analytical Chemistry
• Toxicology

Background:

• Premade foods are increasingly popular, raising concerns about potential contaminants from food and packaging.
• Existing methods for analyzing food contaminants can be inefficient for large datasets.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an automated, nontargeted screening method for identifying volatile and semivolatile organic compounds in food.
• To improve the efficiency of data processing and chemical identification in food safety analysis.

Main Methods:

• Implemented a fully automated workflow for molecular network visualization to identify natural and added food substances.
• Utilized nontargeted screening to analyze raw data, reducing over 1,800 compounds to 80 for manual inspection.
• Employed data mining and trimming workflows for chemical prioritization based on toxicity.

Main Results:

• Successfully identified hazardous compounds including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phthalate esters, bisphenol, and organophosphate esters.
• Detected functional chemicals (antioxidants, preservatives) and numerous unlisted suspicious compounds.
• Prioritized 1,2-diphenylcyclopropane, 3-acridinol, and 9-phenyl based on high toxicity.

Conclusions:

• The developed nontargeted analysis workflow is a powerful tool for food safety assessment.
• While overall intake risk was low, bisphenol detection warrants concern due to regulatory trends.
• The method effectively identifies known and novel contaminants, highlighting areas for further investigation.