A normalised real-time PCR method to quantify soybean protein material in meat products at trace amounts and as affected by thermal processing

Over the last years, food allergies have been faced with growing interest since they are increasingly recognized as an important problem of public health. In order to protect consumers, proper legislation hás been issued regarding foods known to cause allergic reactions in sensitized individufllsi Accordingly, in EU, Directive 2007/68/EC requires the mandatory discrimination of ali allergenic foods from the rest of the ingredients present in labels, regardless of their quantity. Soybean is among the fourteen groups of potentially allergenic foods whose presence in processed foods must always be declared [l J. Nowadays, soybean is frequently used by the food industry in several different processed foodstuffs, including meat products such as sausages, hamburgers or hams. Due to its wide use and considering that nowadays several food products can be processed in the same facility, even with such regulations in practice, unintentional cross-contamination with soybean and or/mislabelling can occur. Thus, for labelling compliance monitoring and to assure consumer's protection, the development of adequate methodology for soybean detection is ofutmost importance.
This work was supported by FCT grant no. LAQV UID/QUI/50006/2013. Joana Costa is grateful to FCT grant (SFRH/BPD/102404/2014) financed by POPH-QREN (subsidised by FSE and MCTES).

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