RAPID-DETERMINATION OF CHOLESTEROL IN SINGLE AND MULTICOMPONENT PREPARED FOODS

A rapid method has been developed for cholesterol determination in sin gle and multicomponent foods. The method involves alcoholic KOH saponi fication of the samples, extraction of the nonsaponifiable fraction wi th hexane, and injection of concentrated extract into the gas chromato graph without derivatizations. It has been applied to a wide variety o f frozen and refrigerated foods. More than 300 samples were analyzed w ith a coefficient of variation (CV) ranging from 0.5 to 8.6%. The aver age recoveries of cholesterol from spiked oil and tomato vegetable sou p samples were 100 +/- 1.5% and 99.7 +/- 1.6% and the CVs were 1.5 and 1.6%, respectively. This method reduces labor by >70%, eliminates dan gerous chemicals, and minimizes solvent use, compared to the AOAC meth od and other methods cited in the manuscript. The method was used succ essfully on a wide variety of multicomponent foods. We recommend this method for collaborative study under the AOAC guidelines for method ap proval.