Molecular Marker Based Adulteration Detection in Traded Food andAgricultural Commodities of Plant Origin with Special Reference to Spices

Plant foods and agricultural commodities including spices are increasingly subjected to adulteration by design or default, jeopardizing the age old reputation of some of the famous traded commodities and incurring heavy loss to the exchequer. The adulterants range from synthetic chemicals and earthy materials to products of plant origin. Though conventional analytical tools have good resolution power to detect the synthetic adulterants of food and agricultural commodities, these methods are hardly powerful enough to identify the biological adulterants. DNA based methods have application in biological adulterant detection and authentication of a wide range of food and agricultural commodities. This review lists some of the adulterants in powdered black pepper, chilli and turmeric and their detection with special reference to selected molecular markers (RAPD and SCAR).