Supervisory Chemist U.S. Food and Drug Administration, United States
Abstract: Brominated vegetable oil (BVO) is no longer authorized for use in food due to its adverse health effects in humans. Before this change, BVO was permitted in beverages in small amounts (up to 15 parts per million) to stabilize fruit flavorings. Previously published BVO methods used liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) or UltraPerformance Convergence Chromatography (UPC2)-MS to directly analyze BVO in carbonated beverages. However, these methods require the use of less common mobile phase solvents (butanol) or specialized equipment (UPC2). This work uses more readily available instrumentation (LC-MS/MS), typical solvents, and a simple sample preparation. This presentation will discuss some of the challenges in developing the methodology, such as finding the ion transitions with the highest selectivity and sensitivity, choosing an appropriate mobile phase, and evaluating the use of an internal standard. Overall, our LC-MS/MS method could detect BVO in beverages at low levels (< 1 part per million). The method has a high degree of linearity (R2 > 0.95). Additionally, the method was evaluated for its precision and accuracy using market soda samples, some of which listed BVO on the labeling.
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