14B-29

K. GAO, Y. Kakuda, V. Abraham, L. Laleye, F. Niekamp, and S. Chong. Department of Food Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada

Vitamin A deficiency affects an estimated 40 million people in developing countries. One way to deliver the desired nutrients to the individual who needs them is by the fortification of commonly purchased food products. The fortification of vegetable oils with retinyl palmitate was considered to be a viable intervention strategy for vitamin A.

The goals of this research were to determine the storage and cooking stability of vitamin A in fortified vegetable oils.

Three levels of vitamin A, three types of oils , five temperatures, light and dark exposure and three packaging conditions were used in the experimental design. The stability of samples was determined by HPLC analysis over 24 weeks storage.

The results revealed that the major factors affecting vitamin A stability was exposure to light (P<0.01) and storage temperature (P<0.05). After 4 weeks of storage under fluorescent lights, the vitamin A levels in all oil samples had decreased by over 50 % of their initial value. Due to the dominating effects of light exposure, there were no significant differences among the three packaging conditions - open bottle, sealed bottle, flushed and sealed bottle. The oil samples that were protected from light showed excellent vitamin A retention. After 24 weeks of storage at room temperature, 78% to 100% of the vitamin A still remained. For those samples that did show a loss in vitamin A, temperature (P<0.01) and packaging (P<0.01) were the important factors. The vitamin A in soybean oil and Vanaspati ghee were shown to be relatively stable when used in traditional cooking recipes. These traditional dishes were staple food items of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Africa.

These results indicate that vitamin A in vegetable oils has good storage stability when protected from light and only minor losses are incurred during normal cooking procedures.