Abstract
This report is divided in two parts: Part A is a ""State of the Art"" review on the different types of information to verify, and Part B describes some of the most relevant techniques, equipment necessary and their advantages and drawbacks. Farmed from wild Atlantic salmon have been discriminated based on the fact that the fatty profile of their storage lipids reflects the composition of the feed and that artificial diets have a higher amount of total fat and of typical vegetable oils than natural diets, which are small fish and pelagic fish. Techniques used to obtain information about the fat content and composition are gas chromatography and nuclear magnetic resonance analyses. No systematic studies have been carried out yet on other cultivated species or on lean species. There are not officially recognized standard methods to ensure the production method. Research into developing methods to identify the geographic origin of fish lags behind even more. No officially recognized methods exist. Among the methods examined, isotope signatures analyzed by isotope ratio mass spectrometry seem to be the most promising. The content of some bioactive components - marine oils, taurine, betaine and anserine - may be examined by the classical chromatographic methods and by 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry. The former are cheaper and standard in many laboratories while the latter are newer and more expensive but also require simpler sample preparation and render more additional and relevant information: for example the origin of the oils and presence of additional compounds. The versatility and amount of information that it is possible to obtain from the nuclear magnetic resonance techniques is starting to find application in many aspects of food manufacture it is likely that they will eventually become standard analyses. Regarding the verification of some processing conditions, there are no methods developed or under examination to determine how a product has
