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Nutriology relies on advanced analytical tools to study the molecular compositions of food and provide key information on sample quality/safety. Small nutrients detection is challenging due to the high diversity and broad dynamic range of molecules in food samples, and a further issue is to track low abundance toxins. Herein, we developed a novel plasmonic matrix-assisted laser des-orption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI MS) approach to detect small nutrients and toxins in complex biological emulsion samples. Silver nanoshells (SiO2@-Ag) with optimized structures were used as matrices and achieved direct analysis of~6 nL of human breast milk without any enrichment or separation. We performed identification and quantitation of small nutrients and toxins with limit-of-detection down to 0.4 pmol (for melamine) and reaction time shortened to minutes, which is superior to the conventional biochemical method cur-rently in use. The developed approach contributes to the near-future application of MALDI MS in a broad field and personalized design of plasmonic materials for real-case bio-analysis.