Authentication issues in foods of animal origin and advanced molecular techniques for identification and vulnerability assessment

Food ecosystem and safety issues are some of the most critical challenges that consumers face in day-to-day life. Several vital issues in the food ecosystem have originated from foods of animal origin, portraying a major health-risk in current pandemic situations. Foods of animal origin are subjected to fraudulent activities, which can affect consumer trust and lead to hazardous health risks from zoonoses. Hence, appropriate, robust analytical methods in complex and high-risk products of animal origin are required, for which molecular biomarker-based methods proffer a reliable way. The review focuses primarily on authentication issues in foods of animal origin and use of nucleic acid (DNA and RNA) based techniques in mitigation strategies. Several rarely focussed issues like specified risk material analysis, meat provenance and vegan authentication, are discussed. Integrated molecular analytical approaches have been discussed to the extent required for the vulnerability assessment of animal-origin foods. The review identified several international and cross-continental issues in foods of animal origin and their accurate identification using nucleic acid-based techniques. Although many advanced methods like digital PCR and CRISPR-Cas systems prevail in analyte evaluation, developing accurate analytical methods is a significant concern for identification and trace quantity detection. Finally, law enforcement and such proposed analytical techniques must constantly evolve and improve the aspects of food safety, in order for the food ecosystem to be a ‘fraud-mitigated’ one, where health concerns can be addressed and appropriately resolved.