Double Nn The herb and spice industry is growing at extreme rates, and as of 2018, it was valued at $4 billion (Galvin-King et al., 2018). Fraud, on the other hand, is estimated to have cost the food industry more than $10 billion a year and an incident can cost a company 2-15% of its annual revenue. However, for the sake of increasing profits, adulteration continues to flourish as many herbs have been bulked up with different products such as starch or substituted with cheaper alternatives such as oregano being replaced with olive leaves (Barbosa et al., 2019; Black et al., 2016). Additionally, there are many points in the supply chain where fraud can arise such as the transition from collector to local traders or exporter to manufacturer. As a result, even if an herbal product is listed with all its ingredients in a clear manner, there is still a chance that it is not the exact product.
The issue of adulteration is a worldwide dilemma. For example, Black et al., performed FT-IR screening on 78 samples of oregano from different retail and online stores throughout the world. They discovered that 24% of the samples contained adulterants such as myrtle and olive leaves (Black et al., 2016). In another study by Dastjerdi et al., 61 herbal weight loss products within Kermanshah, Iran were tested through gas chromatography or mass spectrometry (Dastjerdi et al., 2018). They discovered that 72% of the supplements were corrupted with chemicals such as tramadol, caffeine, fluoxetine, rizatriptan, venlafaxine, and methadone. Moreover, in a large study conducted by Ichim, 5,957 herbal products throughout 37 different countries expanding through 6 continents were analyzed by DNA-based methods. They concluded that 27% of the products were adulterated (Ichim, 2019). These herbs went against their labeled species and were composed of filler species, contaminants, or contained none of the species at all. The highest continents with adulterated products were Australia (79%), South America (67%), lower Europe (47%), and North America (27%).
In the end, labels cannot be trusted. As a result, herbal products should be purchased from reliable and reputable sources. In order to limit the possibilities of adulteration, there should be an awareness of the number of times the herb is being transferred from place to place within the supply chain. Furthermore, where it is being sourced from should be considered because certain regions have higher rates of contamination than others (Galvin-King et al., 2018; Ichim, 2019). Adulteration poses a great health risk to the public and can cause adverse effects such as the case with Sudan dyes, a group 3 genotoxic carcinogen, being added to spices to increase their color intensity (Black et al., 2016). Therefore, herbs should be purchased with caution because there is a possibility the label may not be the herb that arrives at one’s doorstep.
References
Barbosa, C., Nogueira, S., Gadanho, M., & Chaves, S. (2019). Study on Commercial Spice and Herb Products Using Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS). Journal of AOAC
International, 102(2), 369–375. https://doi.org/10.5740/jaoacint.18-0407
Black, C., Haughey, S. A., Chevallier, O. P., Galvin-King, P., & Elliott, C. T. (2016). A Comprehensive Strategy To Detect the Fraudulent Adulteration of Herbs: The Oregano Approach. Food Chemistry, 210, 551–557. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2016.05.004
Dastjerdi, A. G., Akhgari, M., Kamali, A., & Mousavi, Z. (2018). Principal Component Analysis of Synthetic Adulterants in Herbal Supplements Advertised As Weight Loss Drugs. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 31, 236–241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctcp.2018.03.007
Galvin-King, P., Haughey, S. A., & Elliott, C. T. (2018). Herb and Spice Fraud; the Drivers, Challenges and Detection. Food Control, 88, 85–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2017.12.031
Ichim, M. C. (2019). The DNA-Based Authentication of Commercial Herbal Products Reveals Their Globally Widespread Adulteration. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2019.01227
