Determination of the level of benzo[a]pyrene in fatty foods and food supplements

Jacqueline Claire Agnes van Der Wielen-Hustinx (1) , John Jansen (2) , Martijn J. Martena (2) , Henk de Groot (2) , Paul In T Veld (2)

1 Region South - R&D
2 Region South - R&D

A routine method was developed for the quantification of benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) in edible oils and food supplements. BaP is often taken as an indicator of the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The method consists of on-line LC-clean up followed by injection to an HPLC-system connected with fluorescence detection. The method has good performance characteristics and gave good results in proficiency tests. From 2002 to 2004 about 1350 samples, oils and food supplements, were analysed using this method to test the level of benzo[a]pyrene. About 20% of the edible oils contained more than 1.2 µg/kg BaP (which is the limit applied by the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority until 1 April 2005, and includes measurement uncertainty). In the case of food supplements more then 30% contained too high levels of BaP, ranging from 1.2 to 135 µg/kg.

Mots clés: Life Sciences

Jacqueline Claire Agnes van Der Wielen-Hustinx, John Jansen, Martijn J. Martena, Henk de Groot, Paul In T Veld. Determination of the level of benzo[a]pyrene in fatty foods and food supplements. Food Additives and Contaminants, 2006, 23 (07), pp.709-714. ⟨10.1080/02652030600631869⟩. ⟨hal-00577307⟩