Ji. Rader et al., DETERMINATION OF TOTAL FAT AND SATURATED FAT IN FOODS BY PACKED-COLUMN GAS-LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY AFTER ACID-HYDROLYSIS, Food chemistry, 54(4), 1995, pp. 419-427
The new definition of total fat in FDA regulations implementing the Nu
trition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 necessitates the quantitati
on of all lipid fatty acids and the summation of their triglyceride eq
uivalents. A gas-liquid chromatographic (GLC) method using a packed co
lumn has been developed for quantitative measurement of total fat and
saturated fat in foods. Fatty acids are released from food matrices by
acid hydrolysis, and then extracted, esterified to their methyl ester
s and determined by GLC. Total fat and saturated fat are calculated in
accordance with the new definitions of these components. Fat content
determined by the acid hydrolysis-GLC methodology was compared with fa
t content determined by a direct AOAC gravimetric method for 23 food p
roducts containing between about 1 and 75% fat by weight. For all food
products studied, the relationship between the results obtained by th
e two methods was best described by a straight line that had a correla
tion coefficient of 0.94. Results of repeated extractions and analysis
of a milk-based infant formula (SRM 1846) suggest that this material
may be useful as a quality control standard.