7 Crops and Tasty, Nutritious Food – How Can Metabolomics Help?

Annual Plant Reviews book series, Volume 43: Biology of Plant Metabolomics
Derek Stewart

Derek Stewart

Scottish Crop Research Institute, Plant Products and Food Quality Programme, Mylnefield, Invergowrie Dundee, Scotland, DD2 5DA UK

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Louise V.T. Shepherd

Louise V.T. Shepherd

Scottish Crop Research Institute, Plant Products and Food Quality Programme, Mylnefield, Invergowrie Dundee, Scotland, DD2 5DA UK

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Robert D. Hall

Robert D. Hall

Plant Research International, Wageningen University and Research Centre (Wageningen-UR), PO Box 16, Wageningen, AA, 6700 The Netherlands

Centre for BioSystems Genomics, PO Box 98, Wageningen, AB, 6700 The Netherlands

Netherlands Metabolomics Centre, Einsteinweg 55, Leiden, CC, 2333 The Netherlands

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Paul D. Fraser

Paul D. Fraser

School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX UK

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First published: 19 April 2018
Citations: 2
This article was originally published in 2011 in Biology of Plant Metabolomics, Volume 43 (ISBN 9781405199544) of the Annual Plant Reviews book series, this volume edited by Robert D. Hall. The article was republished in Annual Plant Reviews online in April 2018.

Abstract

Food quality, security and safety have become topics of considerable recent interest. With a rapidly growing world population, entailing an ever-expanding requirement for food, and with the global consumer making higher and better-informed demands on our crop and food producers, much attention is being given to how we can meet all these growing needs. Crop growers and food processors alike are already looking at state-of-the-art technologies such as metabolomics as a source of new inroads into the generation of detailed knowledge on the biochemical composition of crop products and how they change during transport, storage and industrial processing. All the steps in the food production chain, from the moment the plant breeder makes the first cross to the canning factory delivering to the supermarket distributor, have potentially significant influence on the quality of the final product the consumer places on the kitchen table. Metabolomics of crop plants and plant products is already being widely applied and is generating new information on the complexity of food composition. In this chapter, some of the main subjects of recent research, concerning both fresh and processed materials, are covered. Emphasis has been laid on technological advances and how we approach food improvement strategies as well as the role of metabolomics is also finding a role in food safety analysis.

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