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The objective of the project is to develop a method that provides the ability to identify the presence of meat species in processed vegetarian foods using Quantitative Real Time PCR. To address the problems of sensitivity an initial primer/probe system based on high-copy number sequences will be used to detect homologous DNA from degraded meat in processed vegetarian products. Samples of typical vegetarian dishes containing a known amount of added meats of common species will be produced using a range of processing conditions to investigate the scope and robustness of the method.
Convenience vegetarian foods are forming an increasing part of the retail sales. There is a need for a sensitive and robust method to detect the adventitious or fraudulent contamination of these products hence reassuring vegetarians and ethnic minorities that they are indeed purchasing food of true vegetarian origin. There are a large number of established methods for the detection of meat species and products in food analyses. However, many of these methods are only applicable to raw or non-degraded meat. Quantitative Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (Q-PCR) has a larger potential in this area and the number of analyses can be dramatically increased. In addition, Q-PCR is well suited to the amplification of DNA that has been highly degraded as a result of processing and which would not yield a product following standard PCR. This work will also compliment work in Q01050 and the contractors will be in close liaison.
<p>Find more about this project and other FSA food safety-related projects at the <a href="http://www.food.gov.uk/science/research/" target="_blank">Food Standards Agency Research webpage</a>.