Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) are short-chain sugars that occur naturally and have dietary benefitsfor hu
mans. They are widely distributed in nature and are a natural part of the hu
man diet. Theobjective of this study was to deter
mine the concentrations of 1-kestose (GF
2), nystose (GF
3), and1
F-
mages/gifchars/beta2.gif" BORDER=0 ALIGN="
middle">-fructofuranosylnystose (GF
4) in a variety of co
mmon processed and prepared foods. An ionchro
matographic
method was developed for this purpose in which the sugar concentrations were
measured using integrated a
mpero
metry. The sa
mples were si
mply prepared by blending with waterand filtering the suspensions through a 10000 Da cutoff centrifugal filter. These sa
mples were theninjected into the ion chro
matograph, which had been progra
mmed for gradient elution, and theareas of the sugar peaks obtained co
mpared to those of standard sugars on a calibration curve.Selected sa
mples were prepared both with and without standard spikes in order to assess theefficiency of the deter
mination. Of the vegetables investigated, artichokes contained by far the
mostFOS, followed by onions; bananas contained
more FOS than other fruits investigated. The
methodwas shown to be si
mple, convenient, and relatively fast for the quantitation of FOS in processedand prepared food products.Keywords: Fructooligosaccharides; food co
mposition; ion exchange chro
matography