Discrimination between vegetable oil and animal fat by a metabolomics approach using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry combined with chemometrics.

Adulteration of olive oil with the other cheap oils and fats plays an important role in economics and has nutritional benefits. In this work, metabolite profiling was performed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to identify and quantify animal fat (lard) adulteration in vegetable oil (olive oil). Principal component analysis could correctly identify and clustering olive oil, sunflower oil, sesame oil, lard, and adulterated samples through the changes in their fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) profile.