Triacetin as food additive in gummy candy and other foodstuffs on the market.

The qualitative and quantitative analytical methods were proposed for the simple and rapid determination of triacetin (TAc) in commercial gummy candies and other foodstuffs by gas chromatography (GC), thin layer chromatography (TLC) and infrared spectroscopy (IR). Each extract from the samples was obtained by pretreatment of the foodstuffs as follows: (A) Gummy candy was dissolved in warm water and the solution was extracted with chloroform. The organic (chloroform) layer was separated. (B) Samples (such as ice cream) containing substantial water were mixed with anhydrous Na2SO4 and stirred to sandy appearance and dried. The residue was homogenized with ether, followed by centrifuging, and the organic (ether) layer was separated. (C) Dried samples (such as chocolate and cookie) were smashed, homogenized with ether, and followed by centrifuging, and the organic (ether) layer was separated. (D) Candy was dissolved in warm water and the solution was extracted with ether. The organic (ether) layer was separated. Each organic layer from (A)-(D) was washed with 10% NaHCO3 and evaporated. The residue containing TAc was dissolved in dichloromethane. The extract obtained was subjected to column chromatography on silica gel. The fractions containing TAc were employed in GC with 25% PEG-20M column, TLC, and IR analyses. Recovery of TAc from gummy candy was 99.1 +/- 3.0% and those from other foodstuffs ranged from was 82.1 to 99.4% by GC. Detection limit by this method was 10 ppm. TAc was found to contain at a level as high as 550 ppm in one domestic gummy candy. On the other hand, one imported gummy candy contained no more than 20 ppm of TAc gummy candy.