Dear Readers,

As „the thick rays of the distant Sun are thrown through the green of sparse branches ”, are new issue is brought to you. The magazine published in my favorite season is slightly thicker than usual. In the spring issue of the Journal of Food Investigations, papers on several areas of food analysis are included.

I myself have difficulty ignoring the question of arsenic contamination of domestic drinking waters. This is the reason why, within a year, we have an article on arsenic again, analyzing laboratory water and other food testing results this time, which were collected over many years.

The topic of our second article is milk and its content of veterinary medicine residues. An LC-MS method that is based on SPE sample preparation and can be easily automated was developed by Béla Kmellár and Judit Susán to detect traces of the antibiotics most often used in veterinary medicine in milk.

Consumption of fruits and vegetables plays a very important role in the diversification of the human diet. It was studied by Géza Székely et al. whether there is a correlation between consumption habits that can be observed in certain locations and several statistical characteristics of urban areas (e.g. settlement size), family size, and many more economic characteristics. One of their interesting findings is that consumption data for this product group vary, for example, by the size of the different settlements.

In the publication of the National Food Chain Safety Office, excerpts from the reults of the authority product tests launched in December 2014 are presented, regarding fresh, dried and candied orange products. During the comprehensive study, the pesticide residue content of the products was found to be acceptable, but a dried, candied product had to be recalled because of its high artificial coloring content, exceeding the allowed value several times. We are happy to report that all organic products tested by the authority complied with regulations.

It is the first time that a paper related to the scientific area of sensory testing is published in our renewed journal. An elegant way of statistical processing of sensory analysis is presented by Pál Molnár. In my experience, the practice of sensory testing is regarded by many as the easy branch of food analysis. Well, this manuscript is the living proof that the senses of an expert, skilled in food analysis, can operate as regular large analytical instruments, and the results provided by them are competitive with data obtained by instruments using state-of-the-art technology.

Ádám Tölgyesi and his research group reports on the practice of LC-MS/MS/MS analysis of veterinary medicines. The technique referred to as „triple quad” in technical terminology can be used to determine trace amounts of drug residues extracted from the most complex matrices. During their work, they also sought to find the answer to the question how the ionization of the target compound in the MS ion source is affected by diferent sample matrices. This paper is connected organically to the topic of the above-mentioned manuscript of Béla Kmellár and Judit Susán.

Adequacy of the packaging materials of our foods is an indispensable prerequisite for our everyday food safety. Our German colleague, Christophe Goldbeck, undertook to summarize in his paper petroleum-based contaminants of packaging borads and their migration characteristics. The chromatographic profile of these migrants resembles the „peak forest” obtained during the analysis of the hydrocarbon contamination of soils and waters. Therefore, the collective signal of several hundred, or even several thousand compounds has to be interpreted at a time by the analyst performing the test.

Application of the new food labeling regulations, introduced recently in the European Union, were studied by János Győrvári and his co-authors. Results of their survey showed that new prescriptions had not been applied uniformmly by different food manfacturing and distributing companies. It was found that conformity of the labels depended on product category, production volume, economic size of the producer, or even the population size of the settlement where the manufacturer was located.

Finally, I wish all our Readers useful reading and, in view of the upcoming Easter, a beautiful spring and a blessed holiday season.

Dr. Tamás János Szigeti

Editor in chief