Recent advances in coupled green assisted extraction techniques for foodstuff analysis

The updating of government regulations regarding food safety (commonly the reduction of the maximum levels allowed for certain contaminants) together with the high complexity of many foods' matrices makes necessary improvements on analytical strategies for food control. In this sense, advances in microextraction techniques as tools for sample pretreatment represent a new opportunity to develop analytical methodologies that allow the determination of contaminants at very low concentrations and with a high degree of selectivity. This review updates the recent applications of coupled microextraction techniques in foodstuff analysis, which are sequentially used for achieving targets isolation as well as targets pre-concentration and/or extracts clean-up. Reviewed methodologies have been focused on bioactive compounds in foodstuff, food additives, edible flavour enhancers, colour dyes, biomarkers in food spoilage (storage and cooking processes), and contaminants (pesticides, mycotoxins, sulphonamides, and metal(oid)s).