Investigation of factors that influence the occurrence of acrylamide in foods and its determination

Acrylamide is one of the heat-generated food toxicants, which was frequently found in various foodstuffs such as potato chips, biscuits and coffee. It has been demonstrated that acrylamide possesses some neurotoxic and carcinogenic effects and is classified in Group 2A as a possible carcinogen to humans by International Agency for Research on Cancer. The aim of this study was to develop an inexpensive, simple and sensitive method for determination of acrylamide and indicate acrylamide levels of some foods produced in Turkey. Acrylamide concentration of 80 samples was examined using high performance liquid chromatography coupled to diode array detection. Acrylamide and methacrylamide (internal standard) were separated using isocratic elution technique by a reversed phase column (GL Sciences, Inertsil® ODS-3). Mobile phase (acetonitrile: water, 2:98, v/v) was pumped at 0.5 mL.min-1 flow rate and analytes were detected at 200 nm wavelength within an average time of 15 min. Samples were prepared by utilizing solid phase clean-up and injected in to the system with no further extraction or pre-concentration steps. Acrylamide was detected at ppb levels with adequate chromatographic resolution. As a result, it was observed that the amount of acrylamide in foods varies due to cooking conditions and was found to be relatively high in many of the samples, especially in coffee and potato chips. Keywords: Acrylamide, food analysis, liquid chromatography, Turkish foods