TECHNICAL NOTE - A SIMPLIFIED PROCEDURE FOR VITAMIN-E DETERMINATION IN BEEF MUSCLE

A simplified method for the determination of alpha-tocopherol concentr ation in beef muscle was developed and evaluated. The method consists of a saponification step applied to 1-g samples of intact, fresh muscl e, followed by a single isooctane extraction of the saponified samples , alpha-Tocopherol in the extract was separated by normal phase chroma tography and quantified by fluorescence detection. A single extraction with the simplified method accounted for 95% of the total muscle alph a-tocopherol concentration obtained by two extractions,with the Arnold et al, (J. Food Sci. 58:28, 1993) method. Recovery of added alpha-toc opherol standard after two extractions of a saponified muscle sample w as 91% for the simplified method, which was not different (alpha = .78 ) from recovery using the Arnold method, and the efficiency of the sin gle extraction in the simplified method was 89%. The coefficients of v ariation for the simplified and Arnold methods were both 3.1%. This me thod should permit the duplicate analysis of 100 fresh muscle samples within 24 h.