The reliability of traditional authentication – A case of ginseng misfit

Ginseng is a famous herb in traditional Chinese medicine. Herbs like ginseng have traditionally been authenticated by morphological and histological means, but it is difficult to identify these herbs nowadays since they look morphologically similar. The quality of food and pharmaceutical products is important for ensuring efficacy and consumer safety. Although several studies have stated that these traditional methods of authenticating ginseng are now hardly reliable, there have been little or no studies which have documented the reliability of such approaches. We report in this study a case of misidentification of ginsengs based on traditional methods of authentication via morphology, and the ability of using infrared spectroscopy and principal component analysis as a rapid form of quality surveillance by discriminating this error.