Sources of errors in the quantitative analysis of food carotenoids by HPLC

Several factors render carotenoid determination inherently difficult. Thus, in spite of advances in analytical instrumentation, discrepancies in quantitative results on carotenoids can be encountered in the international literature. A good part of the errors comes from the pre-chromatographic steps such as sampling scheme that does not yield samples representative of the food lots under investigation; sample preparation which does not maintain representativity and guarantee homogeneity of the analytical sample; incomplete extraction; physical losses of carotenoids during the various steps, especially during partition or washing and by adsorption to glass walls of containers; isomerization and oxidation of carotenoids during analysis. on the otherhand, although currently considered the method of choice for carotenoids, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is subject to various sources of errors, such as: incompatibility of the injection solvent and the mobile phase, resulting in distorted or split peaks; erroneous identification; unavailability, impurity and instability of carotenoid standards; quantification of highly overlapping peaks; low recovery from the HPLC column; errors in the preparation of standard solutions and in the calibration procedure; calculation errors. Illustrations of the possible errors in the quantification of carotenoids by HPLC are presented.

Effects of pretreatment with rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) in the prevention of lipid oxidation in salted tilapia fillets

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Influence of Lentinus edodes and Agaricus blazei extracts on the prevention of oxidation and retention of tocopherols in soybean oil in an accelerated storage test

This study aimed to evaluate the influence of the methanol extracts of mushrooms Lentinus edodes and Agaricus blazei on the retention of tocopherols in soybean oil, when subjected to an accelerated storage test. The following treatments were subjected to an accelerated storage test in an oven at 60 A degrees C for 15 days: Control (soybean oil without antioxidants), TBHQ (soybean oil + 100 mg/kg of TBHQ), BHT (soybean oil + 100 mg/kg of BHT), L. edodes (soybean oil + 3,500 mg/kg of L. edodes extract) and A. blazei (soybean oil + 3,500 mg/kg of A. blazei extract). The samples were analyzed for tocopherols naturally present in soybean oil and mass gain. The results showed, the time required to reach a 0.5% increase in mass was 13 days for TBHQ and 15 days for A. blazei. The content of tocopherols for TBHQ was 457.50 mg/kg and the A. blazei, 477.20 mg/kg.