Adulteration of herbal products: Bamboo tea authentication
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Food Science and Technology, Molecular Biology, Plant Science, Taxonomy
- Keywords
- Food Diagnostics, Food Fraud, Bambusoideae, Carnation, Bamboo, Dianthus, Consumer Rights, DNA Barcoding, DNA Diagnostics, Herbal Tea
- Copyright
- © 2016 Horn et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2016. Adulteration of herbal products: Bamboo tea authentication. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2198v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2198v1
Abstract
Background. Names for ”substances” used in food products are rarely precise. The term bamboo (Bambusoideae, Poaceae) comprises over 1600 distinct species of which only few are well established sources for food products on the European market (i.e. bamboo sprouts).
Methods. We analysed bamboo species and tea products containing an exotic ingredient (bamboo leaves) using anatomical leaf characters and DNA sequence data. Our primary concern was to determine the taxonomic origin of bamboo leaves to establish a baseline for EU legislation, to introduce a simple PCR based test to distinguish bamboo from other Poaceae leaf components and to assess the diagnostic potential of DNA Barcoding markers to resolve taxonomic entities within the bamboo subfamily and tribes.
Results. Based on anatomical and DNA data we can pinpoint the taxonomic origin of genuine bamboo leaves used in commercial products to the genera Phyllostachys and Pseudosasa from the temperate ”woody” bamboo tribe (Arundinarieae). We detected adulteration by carnation in 4 of 8 tea products and, after adapting our objectives, could trace the taxonomic origin of the adulterant to Dianthus chinensis (Caryophyllaceae), a well known traditional Chinese medicine with counter indications for pregnant women.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.