Nanotechnology for Adulteration Detection in Food

Authentic food is essential for maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but unscrupulous traders or producers mix, substitute, and hide quality inspections, sell decomposed food, use forged labels, and mix low-quality chemicals with real food. Food adulteration is a serious public health problem affecting millions of people annually, causing life-threatening diseases, including cancer, liver disease, and kidney disease. Scientists and researchers contribute significantly to food adulteration detection and quantification technologies; however, conventional adulteration testing methods have limitations, including skilled manpower, complex methodologies, or costly instruments. Therefore, rapid, easy technologies to ascertain the purity of food are the need of the time. Nanotechnology is poised to revolutionize the food industry by enhancing processing methods, food contact materials, food packaging, and shelf life. Nanotechnology-based sensors, including colorimetric metal nanoparticle detectors, aptamer sensors, carbon nanotube sensors, or nano probes, etc., are getting popular these days due to their sensitivity, reliability, and short analysis durations, making them safe for identifying adulteration. However, nanotechnology-based products should be delayed until health concerns are addressed, and comprehensive regulation is needed for food and dairy processing. Economic feasibility is also crucial for commercialization.