Metabolic profiling by 1H NMR of ground beef irradiated at different irradiation doses

•The development of new techniques for the detection of irradiated food is advocated.•A step forward in the metabolic profiling of irradiated beef is presented.•1H NMR-based metabolomic is a promising tool to detect irradiated beef.

This work describes a metabolic profiling study of non-irradiated and irradiated beef (at 2.5, 4.5 and 8 kGy) using 1H NMR and chemometrics. The assignment of all major NMR signals of the aqueous/methanolic extracts was performed. A comprehensive multivariate data analysis proved the ability to distinguish between the irradiated and non-irradiated beef. Classification trees revealed that three metabolites (glycerol, lactic acid esters and tyramine or a p-substituted phenolic compound) are important biomarkers for classification of the irradiated and non-irradiated beef samples. Overall, the achieved metabolomic results show that the changes in the metabolic profile of meat provide a valuable insight to be used in detecting irradiated beef. The use of the NMR-based approach simplifies sample preparation and decrease the time required for analysis, compared to available official analytical procedures.