APPLICATION OF H-2 SNIF-NMR AND C-13 SIRA-MS ANALYSES TO MAPLE SYRUP - DETECTION OF ADDED SUGARS

The SNIF-NMR method may be used to measure the site specific isotope c oncentrations in a variety of organic compounds. The most common appli cation of this technique involves quantitative deuterium nuclear magne tic resonance spectroscopy with appropriate interpretation of the accu mulated spectra. SNIF-NMR together with SIRA-MS provides a powerful to ol for food authentication and characterization. The concerted use of SNIF-NMR (deuterium) and SIRA-MS (carbon-13) on ethanol fermented from sugars has proven invaluable to the authentication of nines, spirits, and fruit juices. In this work, the analysis is extended to the authe ntication of maple syrup, a product rich in sucrose. Authentic maple s yrup samples have been analyzed in detail to characterize the intrinsi c variability of the isotopic ratios in this product. These data const itute a data base of authentic samples to which an unknown example of maple syrup can be compared. The isotopic ratios obtained from maple s yrup are very different from those of both beet and cane or corn sugar s. Therefore, the methodologies developed in this work are applicable for the detection of beet and cane or corn sugar added to a maple syru p. It can be shown that, through a simple statistical comparison betwe en the data base and the unknown, a determination of the occurrence an d/or extent of adulteration with added sugar can be made.