Financial gain is a main driver for committing food fraud and replacement of ingredients with cheaper alternatives is an easy way to do it. Coconut sugar is becoming popular as an alternative to beetroot or cane sugar due to its high mineral content and lower glycaemic index. As its market price is about twice as high as that of conventional sugar, coconut sugar may become target to fraudulent manipulation. The present work explores the feasibility of using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence as a screening tool to verify its authenticity. Mass fractions of P, Cl, S, K, Ca, Fe, Cu, Br, Rb, and Sr determined in eleven coconut, ten cane, and one beetroot sugar samples, purchased in Belgian, Spanish, Polish, and Italian supermarkets were used for discriminating the different sugars. On average, the mass fractions of all the mentioned elements were higher in coconut than in cane and beetroot sugars. Multivariate analysis of the elemental fingerprint by Soft Independent Modelling of Class Analogies was used for authentication purposes. Models constructed were characterised by zero false positives; three coconut sugars (27%) could not be classified as such, neither as cane sugars.

中文翻译：

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关于使用ED-XRF测定的元素谱作为鉴定椰子糖的筛选方法的可行性研究

财务收益是实施食品欺诈的主要动力，而用便宜的替代品替代配料是一种简便的方法。椰子糖由于其高矿物质含量和较低的血糖指数而成为甜菜根或蔗糖的替代品。由于椰子糖的市场价格约为传统糖的两倍，因此椰子糖可能成为欺诈性操作的目标。本工作探讨了使用能量色散X射线荧光作为筛选工具验证其真实性的可行性。使用在比利时，西班牙，波兰和意大利的超级市场购买的11个椰子，10个甘蔗和1个甜菜根糖样品中测定的P，Cl，S，K，Ca，Fe，Cu，Br，Rb和Sr的质量分数区分不同的糖。一般，椰子中所有上述元素的质量分数均高于甘蔗和甜菜根糖。通过类比的软独立建模对元素指纹进行多变量分析用于验证目的。所构建的模型的特征是误报为零。三种椰子糖（占27％）不能归类为蔗糖。