Analysis of Food Additives - Food Antioxidants -

Introduction

Food antioxidants serve to prevent the oxidation of food ingredients by becoming oxidized themselves instead. BHT (dibutylhydroxytoluene) and BHA (butylhydroxyanisol), which had become widely used as food antioxidants, are almost never used now because of concern related to their reported carcinogenicity. Instead, vitamin C and vitamin E have recently become widely used. The use of some food additives is not permitted in Japan, but many such substances are permitted in some countries. For example, the antioxidant TBHQ (t-butylhydroquinone) is not permitted to be used in Japan; however, since it may be used in many other countries, there is a possibility of it being included in food imports to Japan. This Application News introduces the results of analysis of the antioxidants BHA, BHT and TBHQ using a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (GC/MS). The antioxidants were added to a butter sample, and then extracted using a simple pretreatment process. In this analysis, the backflush technique was employed to prevent high-boiling point substances in the actual sample from being introduced into the detector.

April 22, 2010 GMT