CHOLESTEROL ANALYSIS IN FOODS BY DIRECT SAPONIFICATION - GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHIC METHOD - COLLABORATIVE STUDY

A collaborative study was conducted on a method for determination of c holesterol in various foods and food products using a direct saponific ation technique and capillary column gas chromatography. The method is a modification of AOAC Official Method 976.26 for the determination o f cholesterol in multicomponent foods. The major modifications include the use of direct hot alkaline saponification and capillary column ga s chromatograph to quantitate the cholesterol. Blind duplicate samples of butter cookies, hot dog buns (made with eggs), bread crumbs, veget able-bacon baby food dinner, NIST (SRM No. 1845) egg powder, skinless wieners, commercial egg powder, vegetable-chicken baby food dinner, an d Cheez Whiz were analyzed by 14 collaborators, The mean cholesterol v alues of these products ranged from less than 1.0 to 1965 mg/100 g. Th e average repeatability (RSD(r)) for all samples was 4.81%, The averag e reproducibility (RSD(R)) was 8.58% with only 2 products having RSD(R ) values above 10%, These 2 products were the baby food dinner complex matrices with cholesterol values below 5 mg/100 g, The fact that the cholesterol levels for these dinner products are close to the level of quantitation is one explanation for the elevated RSDR values, The dir ect saponification-gas chromatographic method for determination of cho lesterol in foods has been adopted first action by AOAC INTERNATIONAL.