JOURNAL OF THE SCIENCE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE, cilt.94, sa.12, ss.2534-2540, 2014 (SCI-Expanded)
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The presence of acrylamide in cereal-based baby foods is amatter of great concern owing to its possible health effects. Derivatization followed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) is one of the most common methods to quantify acrylamide. However, it requires the use of toxic chemicals and is time-consuming. The aim of this studywas to develop an eco-friendly, rapid and inexpensivemethod for the determination of acrylamide in cereal-based baby foods.
RESULTS: Themethod involves defatting with n-hexane, extraction intowater, precipitation of proteins, bromination, extraction into ethyl acetate and injection into a GC/MS system. The effects of defatting, precipitation, treatment with triethylamine, addition of internal standardandcolumnselectionwere reviewed.Aflowchart for acrylamide analysiswas prepared.Toevaluate the applicability of the method, 62 different cereal-based baby foods were analyzed. The levels of acrylamide ranged from not detected (below the limit of detection) to 660 g kg−1.
CONCLUSION: The method is more eco-friendly and less expensive because it consumes very little solvent relative to other methods using bromine solutions and ethyl acetate. In addition, sample pre-treatment requires no solid phase extraction or concentration steps. The method is recommended for the determination of trace acrylamide in complex cereal-based baby food products.