Breakfast cereals, organic

The removal of triglycerides from the food sample by saponification provides the opportunity to utilize reversed-phase chromatography. The unsaponifiable matter is conventionally extracted into a solvent [e.g., diethyl ether/petroleum ether (50 50) or hexane] that is incompatible with a semiaqueous mobile phase. It then becomes necessary to evaporate the unsaponifiable extract to dryness and to dissolve the residue in a small volume of methanol (if methanol is the organic component of the mobile phase). For the analysis of breakfast cereals, margarine, and butter, Egberg et al. (153) avoided the time-consuming extraction of the unsaponifiable matter and the evaporation step by acidifying the unsaponifiable matter with acetic acid in acetonitrile to precipitate the soaps. An aliquot of the filtered extract could then be injected, after dilution with water, onto an ODS column eluted with a compatible mobile phase (65% acetonitrile in water). 

The products that can be handled by today s automatic sorting machines include seeds, coffee, rice, breakfast cereals, nuts and pulses fresh, frozen and dehydrated vegetables cherries (with and without stalks) olives tomatoes prawns biscuits and confectionery. Foreign material such as stones, sticks and organic matter can be removed, as well as objects with defects such as discoloration and damaged skin. Figures 6.2 and 6.3 show two typical sorting machines. 

Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) are antioxidants that are added to foods and many other organic materials to inhibit decomposition caused by reactions with oxygen. Perhaps you have seen these compounds listed among the ingredients on your cereal box at breakfast. (The mechanism of operation for these antioxidants is described in Section 21.8.) Both of these compounds are prepared by Friedel-Crafts alkylation reactions. BHT is synthesized by the reaction of p-methylphenol with 2-methylpropene in the presence of an acid catalyst. 

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