Methodology for measuring the mass fraction of monosodium glutamate in meat matrices

Federal Research Center of Food Systems named after V.M. Gorbatov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 26 Talalikhina St., Moscow, Russia

^* Corresponding author: a.knyazeva@fncps.ru

Abstract

Over the past century, human lifestyles and eating habits have changed dramatically as people in developed countries resort to fast food, they are indiscriminate and get used to frequent snacking. Production of dietary dishes and increase in the range of food products lead to the fact that the manufacturer has to use a large number of functional ingredients, such as those that improve the flavor. One widely used additive is monosodium glutamate. Monosodium L-glutamate (E621) is the sodium salt of glutamic acid present in all protein products which is used worldwide as a food flavor enhancer. The legislation of the Russian Federation sets the level of introduction of monosodium glutamate, or additive E621, into a food product. In connection with the above, there was a need to develop a method for quantitative determination of the mass fraction of introduced monosodium glutamate in the production of food products. A new method for identification of added monosodium glutamate in food products is proposed within the framework of the work under consideration. The authors have developed a technique for the determination of the mass fraction of sodium glutamate in food products by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with precolumn derivatization. The metrological evaluation of the developed methodology is presented, accuracy and reproducibility indices in two concentration ranges are established.