Differential calorimetry scanning: current background and application in authenticity of dairy products

Dairy foods are consumed in a large scale by most age groups and social classes, because it is recognized benefits for the consumers' health and the advantages considering a nutritional point of view. In this sense, they are intentionally subjected to different types of frauds (removal of some valuable ingredients or even substitution of ingredients by inferior substances) committed by industries in order to increase the profitability of the products' sales. Thus, it is very important to have rapid, non-invasive and precise techniques to identify easily frauds in dairy food. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) is a simple thermal analysis methodology recognized as one of these techniques. In this review, the principles and its application for evaluating the authenticity of dairy products are presented.