Tracing the geographical origin of rice applied by stable isotope analysis

Abstract

Despite numerous problems with mislabeling of geographical origin of rice, scientific methods for tracing the origin of production are still lacking. In this study, we report that stable isotope analysis utilizing carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen is useful for tracing the geographical origin for rice grown in Japan, Australia, and the USA. Our results show that the average stable isotope ratios of Japanese rice were lower than those of Australia and the USA for carbon and nitrogen, respectively, and lowest among the three countries for oxygen. Stable isotope analysis will be a powerful tool for tracing the geographical origin of rice among countries when complemented with DNA and multi-element analyses.