IDENTIFICATION OF VEGETABLE SPECIES IN GASTRIC CONTENTS USING HPLC

Identification of 16 vegetables, focusing on the influence of digestio n in the stomach, was carried out on the basis of the types of flavono ids detected on chromatograms using HPLC. Among the 12 vegetables for which flavonoids were detected, the chromatographic patterns of the fl avonoids in digested vegetables were the same as those of the correspo nding raw vegetables, making it possible to identify the species of ve getables even after digestion. In our analysis, 5 mg of a freeze-dried sample was found to be an adequate quantity to enable the detection o f flavonoids. Brief practical cases are also described.